Horticulture Hotspots

There are not many places on Long Island where you can find an entire day’s worth of entertainment for less than the cost of a movie ticket.  At one of Long Island’s many public gardens, you can spend a whole day strolling the grounds, taking photographs, having a picnic, or touring one of the historical mansions.  Long Island and the surrounding area is a Mecca of botanical gardens and arboreta, thanks at least in part to the Island’s Gold Coast history.  We are very fortunate that right in our own backyards there are world-class public gardens where vibrant collections of trees, shrubs, and perennials flourish.

Photo: An allee of European Lindens (Tilia x europaea) and Eastern Hemlocks (Tsuga canadensis) creates a sweeping view of Westbury House, the former mansion of the Phipps estate at Old Westbury Gardens 

Botanical gardens serve many different functions.  They can be a place where people reconnect with nature, clear their minds, and relax in a safe and beautiful greenspace.  They can be a place where people learn about plants and get inspired to try out certain plants and sustainable practices in their own gardens.  They can also be a link to our past, reminding us how people used to live and what they valued. 

Botanical gardens are also important from a scientific standpoint.  They can be a place where different plants are studied and evaluated for their suitability for landscape use.  They can be a place where global floral biodiversity is collected and cataloged.  They can also be a great repository of genetic information from which future conservation work can be conducted.  All of these different functions validate our continued need for public gardens, especially in high urbanized areas like Long Island.     

Whatever your reason for wanting to visit a public garden, be sure to check out Planting Fields Arboretum if you live in Nassau or Bayard Cutting Arboretum if you live in Suffolk.  Both are state parks and are well worth the minimal entrance fee.  Located on the North Shore in Oyster Bay, Planting Fields was the “country home” of Mr. William Robertson Coe who purchased the estate in 1913.  The park currently spans 409 acres and is a testament to the opulence of the Gilded Age.  Magnificent gardens, created by the most notable landscape designers and architects of the time, including the legendary Olmsted Brothers firm, give rise to a landscape of formal plantings, woodlands, and rolling lawn.  As you enter Planting Fields, you will go through a Beech-lined drive that ultimately leads to Coe Hall, the 65 room Tudor-Revival style mansion home of the Coe family.  The recently restored Italian Pool Garden, situated behind the house, features a serene reflecting pool surrounded by a vibrant perennial border.  

Photo: The Italian Pool Garden at Planting Fields Arboretum with Coe Hall in the distance

Also notable is the rhododendron collection, the rose garden, and the Synoptic Garden where the real plant-enthusiast can find over 500 species of trees and shrubs all arranged in alphabetical order by botanical name.  Be sure to not miss the Main Greenhouse and the Camellia Greenhouse which displays the largest collection of camellias in the Northeast.

Bayard Cutting Arboretum, located on the South Shore of Suffolk County in Great River, is a bit older and larger than Planting Fields, as it dates from 1887 and spans 690 acres.  Oak trees as old as 200 years, dot the expansive lawn leading up to “Westbrook,” the Tudor style mansion home of Mr. William Bayard Cutting.  Look through the ornate Tiffany glass windows and you will see tranquil views of the Connetquot River.  Like at Planting Fields, the Olmstead family of landscape architects also had a hand in designing the landscape.  Very old, specimen trees are featured in the extensive conifer collection, trees as unique as Turkish (Abies x bornmuelleriana) and Greek Fir (A. cephalonica).  Much of the property is still wooded, and a short trail will guide you through a natural wetland area.

Photo: This Weeping European Beech (Fagus sylvatica) at Bayard Cutting Arboretum is one of the many magnificent trees there

Whatever botanical garden or arboretum you choose to visit on Long Island or in the surrounding area, you’ll be sure to have an enjoyable experience.  Additional gardens you may want to check out are listed below:

Bailey Arboretum

Bayville Road and Feeks Lane, Lattingtown, Long Island 11560

516-571-8020

www.baileyarboretum.org

Bayard Cutting Arboretum

440 Montauk Highway, Great River, Long Island 11739

631-581-1002

www.bayardcuttingarboretum.com

Bridge Gardens

36 Mitchell Lane, Bridgehampton, Long Island 11932

631-283-3195

www.peconiclandtrust.org/bridge_gardens.html

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

1000 Washington Avenue, Brooklyn 11225

718-623-7200

www.bbg.org

Clark Botanic Garden

193 IU Willets Road, Albertson, Long Island 11507

516-484-8602

www.clarkbotanic.org

Conservatory Garden

Central Park

105^th Street and 5^th Avenue, New York 10029

212-360-2766

www.centralpark.com

Farmingdale State College Ornamental Horticulture Gardens

Farmingdale State College

2350 Broadhollow Road, Farmingdale, Long Island 11735

631- 420-211

www.farmingdale.edu/campuspages/business/horticulture/pages/home/homepage.html

The Garden City Bird Sanctuary and Arboretum

Opposite 181 Tanners Pond Road, Garden City, Long Island 11530

516-326-1720

www.gcbirdsanctuary.org

Hofstra University Arboretum

129 Hofstra University, Hempstead, Long Island 11549

516-463-6623

www.hofstra.edu/community/Arbor/index.html

The John P. Humes Japanese Stroll Garden

347 Oyster Bay Road, Mill Neck, Long Island 11765

516-676-4486

www.gardenconservancy.org/humes.html

Nassau County Museum of Art

1 Museum Drive at Northern Boulevard, Roslyn Harbor, Long Island 11576

516-484-9337

www.nassaumuseum.org

LongHouse Reserve

133 Hands Creek Road, East Hampton, Long Island 11937

631-329-3568

www.longhouse.org

The Madoo Conservancy

618 Sagg Main Street, Sagaponack, Long Island 11962

631-537-8200

www.madoo.org

The NY Botanical Garden

200^th Street and Kazimiroff Boulevard, Bronx 10458

718-817-8700

www.nybg.org

Old Westbury Gardens

71 Old Westbury Road, Old Westbury, Long Island 11568

516-333-0048

www.oldwestburygardens.org

Planting Fields Arboretum

1395 Planting Fields Road, Oyster Bay, Long Island 11771

516-922-9200

www.plantingfields.org

Queens Botanical Garden

43-50 Main Street, Flushing 11355

718-886-3800

www.queensbotanical.org

Wave Hill

West 249 Street and Independence Avenue, Bronx 10471

718-549-3200

www.wavehill.org

The Dying Trees

I’ve been delaying writing about this topic because it’s such a downer.  But since it is an important one, I’ll give it a go, so please bear with me...  Our trees are dying.  Someone who doesn’t know a lot about trees (ie. most people) would consider this statement an alarmist scare tactic, typical of the tree-hugging, over-exaggerating, environmental movement that constantly spits out doomsday hyperboles in the futile hope of stirring the public towards action.  Unfortunately, to state that our country’s trees are dying is no exaggeration.  

Photo: Many street trees on Long Island have died because of the Asian Longhorned Beetle

Invasive insect pests and new fatal tree diseases are seriously impacting our nation’s forests, our community’s street trees, and our own backyards.  Over the past century, global trade has expanded exponentially and has inadvertently facilitated the introduction of invasive pests into this country through various means including wood packing materials.  Insect pests and diseases that are native to other areas of the world are able to cause an alarming amount of damage to our trees.  Because our trees did not evolve with non-native or new insects or diseases, they did not develop a natural defense mechanism to ward them off and therefore succumb easily.  What our trees face today is analogous to what the American Indians faced when Europeans first came to America.  With no immunity developed against Eurasian infectious diseases, Native Americans died by the millions.  Likewise, our native trees are dying by the millions to diseases such as Chestnut Blight and Dutch Elm Disease, the smallpox and bubonic plague of the tree world. 

Photo: A mature American Elm exhibiting symptoms of Dutch Elm Disease; Garden City

It is incredible how quickly invasive insect pests and new fatal tree diseases have altered and continue to alter the landscape.  Among the most dramatic changes, our eastern hardwood forests have lost an estimated 4 billion American Chestnut trees (Castanea dentata) due to the fatal Chestnut Blight disease.  Over 100 years after the introduction of Chestnut Blight into the US via chestnut seeds or young plants from Eastern Asia, the American Chestnut Foundation® is still trying to develop an American Chestnut tree that is resistant to the disease.  Meanwhile, oaks and hickories have grown in where majestic Chestnut trees once stood. 

But our oaks are at risk as well – in 1995 Sudden Oak Death was first reported in California.  Serious efforts have been underway to make sure that this aggressive, lethal disease does not spread to the East Coast where it could easily infect our native oaks including Northern Red Oak (Quercus rubra) and Pin Oak (Quercus palustris).  But if you do see an oak tree around here wilting and dying quickly, it’s probably the aggressive and lethal Oak Wilt disease, first identified in 1944, instead of the aggressive and lethal Sudden Oak Death.

I haven’t even mentioned some of our newer insect pests, including the Asian Longhorned Beetle, first discovered in Brooklyn in 1996.  The Asian Longhorned Beetle has killed tens of thousands of trees in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Illinois, including our beloved native Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum).  And then there’s the Emerald Ash Borer, first discovered in Michigan in 2002, which is extripating all our native Ash trees, including Green Ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica) and White Ash (Fraxinus americana).

Photo: Despite extensive trapping and monitoring efforts like this purple sticky trap, the Emerald Ash Borer continues to spread and is expected to be found on Long Island in the near future

With these deadly insects and diseases, our entomologists, plant pathologists, ecologists, and plant breeders certainly have a lifetime of work cut out for them.  Millions of dollars in research, outreach, and education are being invested to contain or at least slow the spread of certain tree pests.  But our trees are still dying and our natural world has already changed.  It is disheartening to know that the woods I occasionally hike through and the tree-lined streets I walk by are very different from those that my grandparents and great-grandparents experienced. 

In this day and age, it is difficult to have a positive outlook on the future of our nation’s forests and trees.  Perhaps there is some solace in knowing that most people today who take a hike in our eastern woodlands don’t realize that American Chestnut, American Elm, and Eastern Hemlock should be there, but are missing.  Instead, they see a lush forest of uninterrupted greenery.  Ignorance may truly be bliss, and I sometimes wish that I could go back and experience nature again without knowing all the things that I know now. 

But what about the future?  Do I dare wonder what our forests and landscapes will look like in another 100 years?  What trees will be left?  And more importantly, how many people will remember all the trees we’ve lost?  Asking these questions makes me think of the concept of “shifting baselines,” a term coined by biologist Daniel Pauly in 1995.  Establishing a baseline or reference point for a degraded ecosystem is important because then we know what we have to do to work to restore it.  But over time, undocumented knowledge is lost, and the baseline can slowly and subtly shift until we accept degraded habitats as “normal.”  Perhaps when the last Ash tree falls or the last Sugar Maple dies, our children will never have known that baseball bats used to be made from the wood of ash trees, or that maple syrup used to be made from Sugar Maple sap and not high fructose corn syrup.  Future generations may accept forests devoid of these tree species as normal.  It is therefore of utmost importance for ecologists today to document as much information about our forests as possible, so that we can relay this knowledge to future generations and prevent baseline reference points from shifting too far.  Even if experts cannot stop the Emerald Ash Borer or Sudden Oak Death, studying our trees and forests will not have been in vain.  Sadly, scientists must come to terms with the reality that our trees are in fact dying.