Photography by: Longwood Graduate Fellows
It has already been two months since we had our annual symposium, though it feels much longer. Since then the second years have been working hard on finishing their theses, the first years have dived head first into theirs, plans for the annual APGA conference have been made, the graduation dinner has been organized, and overall we have all been very busy…however not too busy to take time to visit some public gardens and celebrate all of the hard work we put into this years Symposium.
On May 8, early in the morning, Laurie, Lindsey, Ling, Josh and Quill (the rest of the second years were busy – see above) all set off to visit gardens in northern New Jersey. We were fortunate enough to not hit too much traffic and arrived on time to our first destination, Greenwood Gardens in Short Hills. We were met here by Louis Bauer and Brendan Huggins, the two horticulturists on staff at this newly opened public garden. Greenwood Gardens opened to the public for the first 
time this year, and is a historic house and garden rooted in the Arts and Crafts and Classical approach to garden design. The site is located on a lush hillside, adjacent to a large nature preserve and recreation complex owned by the state. It is easy to forget that you are less than hour away from Manhattan as you stare off into the distance of green rolling hills. The whole garden is a series of gorgeous grottos, terraces, balustrades, allées and water features; there is even a small farm with goats, chickens, and geese – a remembrance of the past owners. Louis and Brendan showed us around the gardens and explained the history of the land, as well as some of the challenges in restoring a garden back to a specific time period. We finished our tour of Greenwood inside the house where we were able to go through some historic photo albums of the family and the gardens.
After Greenwood, we headed into the small, nearby town of Summit, NJ, and found a great lunch restaurant simply called Food. As we walked in we commented on how lucky we were that it had not rained on us, and in fact how it was even getting a little sunny out. No sooner than we had sat down though, the sky opened and it began to pour. We were in no rush so we took the opportunity to eat a leisurely lunch and we even took some time to talk about next year’s symposium.
As the downpour subsided we headed out for our second garden, Reeves-Reed Arboretum, located about five minutes away from Greenwood Gardens. At Reeves-Reed Arboretum we were greeted by 2010 LGP alumna Shari Edelson, who is now the director of horticulture at the garden. Reeves-Reed Arboretum is a historic house and estate that has been graced 
with the design work of several prominent landscape architects throughout its history, including Calvert Vaux and Ellen Biddle Shipman. The garden has many wonderful treasures including its narcissus bowl, several champion trees, a rose garden, and traditional herb garden. Though the area has been victim to natural disasters in the past two years, the garden looked magnificent and they are still moving a head with their plans to expand their children’s programming, including the new children’s vegetable garden being installed for this summer. And to make our visit even better the rains held off for us yet again, though Shari did provide some wonderful Reeves-Reed umbrellas just in case.
It was a long day, but a wonderful way to celebrate the success of Symposium 2013 and look forward towards Symposium 2014!
Day two with our guide was a little slow. We started out exploring the natural areas behind the Museum Paulista. They are full of native Brazilian trees and tropical plants along with lots of exercise equipment. What’s different about Brazil compared with the US is that we constantly saw people of all ages utilizing this equipment, doing pull ups and using the leg and running machines. The woods in Sao Paulo, along with the parks and open areas all over Brazil were lively and well used.
The garden in front is modeled after Versailles and is quite formal with a beautiful choreographed fountain. It is aptly named Independence Park and there is a monument to celebrate independence and also the original emperor. It was interesting to see how they were managing the loss of some of the larger trees by replacing them in the formal allées. In addition we were surprised at the amount of boxwood used in the design.
In the afternoon we visited the central market where we sampled lots of tropical fruit and ate lunch. Some of the best stories from the trip happen whenever we attempt to order food. Sometimes the restaurant has a menu in English which is very helpful to us in ordering. However, most of the time the waiter cannot read the English menu so we still have trouble ordering the correct item. All in all that part has been an entertaining learning experience.
As we continued through the gardens and conservatories, we found ourselves in an ever-growing number of school groups. Nelson explained that there is a kindergarten on the grounds which frequently brings the kids onto the grounds, but also Sao Paulo Botanical Garden hosts over 35,000 children a year for local public schools. Students come to explore and to learn about the different ecosystems in Brazil and how each one is important. At the garden, visitors have the opportunity to explore a çerrado (savanna) ecosystem inside one of the greenhouse, walk on an elevated pathway through a preserved Mata Atlantica (Atlantic Rainforest) and to learn about native orchids, bromeliads, and trees found throughout the entire country. By the end of the morning I think we all had a much better understanding of Brazilian ecology, thanks to Sao Paulo Botanical Garden.
and many employees were on vacation, we were able to meet with some researchers from the mycology department, the seeds physiology department, and the orchid department. We even got to go into their orchid house, which holds one of the largest collections of orchids in Brazil.
