The next day, June 12th covered a lot of ground.
First, I headed to Annandale-on-the-Hudson, NY, to visit Bard College. The college has two gardens open to the public - Blithewood and Montgomery Place. Since classes had concluded by the time I visited, the campus was pretty sparse, and unfortunately, the garden blooms were not at their peak. I can only imagine how lovely the spring flowers look in April and early May.
My first stop Bard College stop was Blithewood.
Blithewood Garden, constructed in 1903 for Captain Andrew Zabriskie, a real estate tycoon, and captain of the National Guard, to accompany his Georgian- style mansion features a formal Italianate walled garden on the main campus. At just 15,000 square feet in size, Blithewood, an intimate garden within a grand setting, is 130 feet above the Hudson River, overlooking the Catskill Mountains' panorama.
A 5-minute drive down the campus road brought me to Montgomery Place. Purchased by Bard College in 2016, Montgomery Place was, for nearly two centuries, the summer retreat of the Livingston family. The gardens at Montgomery Place reflect the period between 1925 and 1945. The site is 434 acres of rolling lawns, woodlands, and gardens overlooking the Hudson River and the Catskill Mountains. Although I could slip in a quick walk around the grounds, it appeared that extensive restoration work was underway, with large swaths of the area corded off from visitors and the former "summer house" closed to the public.
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