NATIVE PLANT CENTER SPRING TOUR TO PAWLING’S
QUAKER HILL GARDENS ON
MAY 21
The Native Plant Center (NPC), which is celebrating its
10th anniversary with a number of special events and programs, is
sponsoring a May 21 trip to the Quaker
Hill Native
Plant Garden
in Pawling, New York. Travel with The NPC to an
extraordinary landscape on a fantastic scale and spend the day learning
about wildflowers and native plants. This is an exclusive guided tour to the
private, rarely seen 350-acre garden.
The morning will be spent at this amazing property.
After lunch at McKeever’s Restaurant, the group will enjoy a talk by the
owner of Native Landscapes and tour the Garden Center.
Travel by luxury coach leaving
Westchester
Community College at 9:00
a.m. with another pickup point at 9:15 a.m. The return is at 4:30 p.m. The
signup deadline is May 8. The all-inclusive fee for the event is $100.
The Quaker Hill
Native Plant
Garden has been a
work-in-progress by the Ziff family for over 20 years. It seamlessly
incorporates the existing landscape in many areas, but the majority of the
rocks and ground forms, the trees and groundcovers, and all the ponds and
waterfalls, are entirely constructed. There are 12 miles of roads, trails,
and paths, 24 waterfalls, over 10,000 planted trees, 45 acres of ponds and
lakes, and more than 1,000 native plant species. Paths are narrow and rocky,
so comfortable walking shoes are necessary. If someone is uncomfortable
walking, Quaker Hill can provide them with a driving tour. If this is
necessary, please notify us by May 8.
McKeever’s, where lunch will be held, is a cozy, family
restaurant. The atmosphere is bright and warm, and they serve American
cuisine. Interestingly, the owner is the great-grandson of Judge Stephen W.
McKeever, the original owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Pete Muroski of Native Landscapes and
Garden
Center in Pawling will
welcome the group to his unique Garden Center-Design Center. He will lead a
brief tour of his niche garden center, one of the few exclusively native
plant centers in the Northeast offering the "American Beauty" program,
sponsored by the National Wildlife Federation. "You'll find many plants
unique to our area, so come shop and learn," says owner Muroski. “One of my
hobbies is raising upland game birds and part of my collection is here at
the Garden Center so bird enthusiasts can keep
themselves amused around the cages.”
The
Native Plant
Center at Westchester Community
College is dedicated to educating people about
the importance of wildflowers and native plants of the Northeast. As the
first national affiliate of the Lady Bird Johnson
Wildflower
Center
in Austin, Texas,
the college’s Center is extending the educational and environmental concepts
of the Texas Center to this region. It shares
information on choosing, growing, and maintaining native plants. The
Center’s mission is to educate people about the environmental necessity,
economic value, and natural beauty of native plants in the Northeast.
The
Lady Bird
Johnson
Demonstration
Garden and the
Stone
Cottage Garden
on the college’s campus in Valhalla contain
native species which thrive in the Northeast. There is no better way to
learn about and understand these plants than by watching them grow, mature,
flower and seed. In addition, The Center offers classes and lectures by
native plant experts.
To quote Lady Bird Johnson, “Whatever its condition,
the environment is, after all, a reflection of ourselves, our tastes, our
aspirations, our successes, and our failures.”
For more information on this and other events, see The
Native Plant Center’s web site at
www.nativeplantcenter.org or phone 914-606-7870.
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