snug harbor

Two Sundays ago we spent some time at Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden.  There was a plant sale and I took the opportunity to stock up on some plants for the garden.  I picked up some small dahlias, European wild ginger, some dusty miller for the window boxes, a pink iris (Beverly Sills,) cherry tomatoes (to grow in pots this time around,) and trollius (alabaster.)  It was a little hard to resist buying more.

A little background history on Snug Harbor via their website:

"Robert Richard Randall, Snug Harbor Cultural Center’s founder and benefactors’ bequest of 1801, created Sailors’ Snug Harbor’s original three buildings as a “haven for aged, decrepit and worn out sailors.” Over the next century, Snug Harbor expanded to 50 structures and 900 residents from every corner of the world. By the turn of the 20th century, Snug Harbor was the richest charitable institution in the United States and a self-sustaining community composed of a working farm, dairy, bakery, chapel, sanatorium, hospital, music hall and cemetery."

Snug Harbor currently has many garden spaces including a beautiful peony garden.

There are tons of lovely old growth trees as well.  I believe these are sycamore trees:

The Chinese Scholar's Garden  was open and had free admission for the day.  Neither of us had ever been there before so we decided to check it out.  To enter the garden you pass through one of the Victorian cottages on Cottage Row (currently a gift shop) and walk down a path.  All of a sudden you will come to a forest of bamboo.

I must admit I was a little intimidated by the bamboo.  It was beautiful but whenever the wind blew and the stalks touched my shoulders I wondered if the bamboo somehow knew what we did to its relatives!
After passing through the bamboo we came upon the garden complex:

I think the photos say it all. Breathtaking.