Reeves-Reed Arboretum | |
Location | Summit, NJ |
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Coordinates | 40°43′36″N74°20′53″W / 40.72667°N 74.34806°W |
Area | 13.5 acres (5.5 ha) |
Built | 1889-1925 |
Architect | Calvert Vaux, Ellen Biddle Shipman and Carl F. Pilat |
NRHP reference No. | 93000233 |
Added to NRHP | 1993 |
The Reeves-Reed Arboretum (13.5 acres (5.5 ha)) is a nonprofit [1] arboretum and garden located at 165 Hobart Avenue in Summit, Union County, New Jersey, United States. It is the only arboretum in Union County. A popular wedding spot, the arboretum grounds are open daily from dawn till dusk, free of charge.
The property was originally traversed by Lenni Lenape Native Americans on their route from the coast near Elizabeth to the highlands near Schooley's Mountain. During the American Revolutionary War, it was farmed, and was adjacent to the site of the Old Sow cannon and the signal beacon atop Beacon Hill on the Second Watchung Mountain.
In 1889, John Hornor Wisner, a merchant in the China trade, purchased the property for a country estate—some 12 acres from the Swain farm. John and Isabelle Wisner, whose three children had been born in China, [2] hired New York architects Babb, Cook and Willard to build a Colonial Revival house, sited facing south with extensive views over the rolling hills. The Wisners moved to their stylish new home and called it "The Clearing." Working with noted landscape architect Calvert Vaux, they planted specimen trees and created flower beds and a meandering path around the property. [3] In 1916, new owners, Richard and Susie Reeves, purchased the estate. Susie Reeves expanded the gardens, guided by[ citation needed ] prominent landscape architects Ellen Biddle Shipman (1924) and Carl F. Pilat (1924-1925), [3] adding a rose garden in 1925. The Charles L. Reed family became the last private owners in 1968, adding an herb garden. In 1974, the estate was preserved as a public arboretum by the City of Summit.[ citation needed ]
The gardens are a beautifully maintained example of early 20th century landscape architecture, also known as the Country Place Era. Italianate in character, the garden layout is symmetrical and axial, creating formal garden rooms off a main axis from the house.
The Gretchen Keller Azalea Garden (designed by Shipman and Pilat) and Rock Garden contain about 850 shrubs and 25 trees. Its peak bloom is in May, with the dogwoods, azaleas, lilacs, deutzia and crabapples.
The Susie Graham Reeves Rose Garden contains 286 rose bushes, representing over 150 varieties of roses, including floribundas and hybrid teas laid out in a traditional circle-in-a-square design. The central feature of the rose garden is a cherub fountain from the Reeves period. Old fashioned roses flank the formal garden, and climbing roses are trained on posts and chains.
Features: Wesson Nature Grove, Lilac Garden, Herb Garden, Vernal Pool, Woodland Trails (hiking paths), and tours.
Daffodil Day Over 30,000 daffodils bloom in a glacial bowl in front of Wisner House each April. The Arboretum hosts its annual Daffodil Day event to celebrate. The original flowers were planted by Susie Graham Reeves in the 1920s. [4] Since 2014, the Arboretum has used a small herd of Nubian goats to remove excess vegetation and weeds.
Celebrate Fall Annually, the Arboretum hosts a celebration of autumn with events such as cidering, seasonal cooking demonstrations and pumpkin carving.
Other events at the garden have included a Maple Sugar Fest, Great American Backyard Campout, Holiday House Tour, and Sounds of a Summer Night.
Features: Wesson Nature Grove, Lilac Garden, Herb Garden, Vernal Pool, Woodland Trails (hiking paths), and tours.
Square Foot Gardening A pilot program started in 2018 is designed to provide children with a connection to nature through organic vegetable gardening. [5]
Educational Programs Children in school groups visit the Arboretum for field trips on science topics, and scout groups earn badges from special programs. In summer, kids attend a wide variety of weekly nature-themed camps, organized by age. Adults visit for sessions such as Gardening 101 and Backyard Bird Feeding tips, as well as related special collaborations with arts organizations.
Beatrix Cadwalader Farrand was an American landscape gardener and landscape architect. Her career included commissions to design about 110 gardens for private residences, estates and country homes, public parks, botanic gardens, college campuses, and the White House. Only a few of her major works survive: Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden on Mount Desert, Maine, the restored Farm House Garden in Bar Harbor, the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden at the New York Botanical Garden, and elements of the campuses of Princeton, Yale, and Occidental.
An arboretum is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, many modern arboreta are in botanical gardens as living collections of woody plants and is intended at least in part for scientific study.
The cottage garden is a distinct style that uses informal design, traditional materials, dense plantings, and a mixture of ornamental and edible plants. English in origin, it depends on grace and charm rather than grandeur and formal structure. Homely and functional gardens connected to cottages go back centuries, but their stylized reinvention occurred in 1870s England, as a reaction to the more structured, rigorously maintained estate gardens with their formal designs and mass plantings of greenhouse annuals.
Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park, which includes the Coe Hall Historic House Museum, is an arboretum and state park covering over 400 acres (160 ha) located in the village of Upper Brookville in the town of Oyster Bay, New York.
The George Griswold Frelinghuysen Arboretum is an arboretum located at 353 East Hanover Avenue, Morris Township, New Jersey. It is open daily without charge. It is also the headquarters of the Morris County Parks Commission.
Ellen Biddle Shipman was an American landscape architect known for her formal gardens and lush planting style. Along with Beatrix Farrand and Marian Cruger Coffin, she dictated the style of the time and strongly influenced landscape design as a member of the first generation to break into the largely male occupation.
This is an alphabetical index of articles related to gardening.
The Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden is a 66-acre (27 ha) botanical garden located at 8525 Garland Road in East Dallas, Texas, on the southeastern shore of White Rock Lake.
The Morris Arboretum & Gardens of the University of Pennsylvania is the official arboretum of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The Arboretum is open daily except for major holidays. It is located at 100 East Northwestern Avenue, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Frederic Heutte was a leading writer, gardener and horticulturist in Norfolk, Virginia.
A Colonial Revival garden is a garden design intended to evoke the garden design typical of the Colonial period of the United States. The Colonial Revival garden is typified by simple rectilinear beds, straight pathways through the garden, and perennial plants from the fruit, ornamental flower, and vegetable groups. The garden is usually enclosed, often by low walls, fences, or hedges. The Colonial Revival gardening movement was an important development in the gardening movement in the United States.
The Conservatory Garden is a formal garden near the northeastern corner of Central Park in Upper Manhattan, New York City. Comprising 6 acres (24,000 m2), it is the only formal garden in Central Park. Conservatory Garden takes its name from a conservatory that stood on the site from 1898 to 1935. It is located just west of Fifth Avenue, opposite 104th to 106th Streets.
Will Rogers Gardens is a 30-acre (12 ha) park in Oklahoma City located at the corner of 36th Street and Portland Avenue. It is one of the city's historic parks and is open year-round. Will Rogers Gardens features the Charles E. Sparks Rose Garden, a 7-acre (2.8 ha) arboretum and a conservatory with a cacti and succulent collection. It also features display beds of daylilies, iris, azaleas, herbs and peonies.
Woodward Park is a 45-acre (18 ha) public park, botanical garden, and arboretum located between 21st Street and 24th Street east of South Peoria Avenue and west of South Rockford Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the Midwestern United States. The park, named for Helen Woodward, the original property owner, was established in 1929, after a lengthy court suit over ownership.
Gardening Naturally is a TV show series hosted by Barbara Damrosch and Eliot Coleman. It was created from 1993 to 1994 and ran until about 2003. It first aired on TLC and later reruns were shown on Discovery Home and Leisure.
Louisa Boyd Yeomans King was an American gardener and author who became a leading advocate of gardening and horticulture, especially in connection with the garden club movement. She wrote on horticultural topics as Mrs. Francis King.
Herbert R. Schaal is an American landscape architect, educator, and firm leader notable for the broad range and diversity of his projects, including regional studies, national parks, corporate and university campuses, site planning, botanical gardens, downtowns, highways, cemeteries, and public and private gardens. Schaal is one of the first landscape architects to design children's gardens, beginning in the 1990s with Gateway Elementary, Gateway Middle, and Gateway Michael Elementary school grounds in St. Louis, Missouri, the Hershey Children's Garden at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens, and Red Butte Garden and Arboretum.
Carl Francis Pilat (1876–1933), the nephew of Ignatz Anton Pilát, was an organizing member of the firm of Hinchman & Pilat, then landscape architect for the city parks 1913–1918. While with the city, Carl Pilat designed Astoria Park, the Telewan project in Queens, both around 1913, and redesigns of Union Square and Isham, Gaynor memorial and Silver Lake parks. Pilat drew landscape designs for estates of C. H. Dodge, Spencer Trask, E. M. Shepard, E. K. Cone and the Baroness von Zimmerman, some of the gardens at what later became the Reeves-Reed Arboretum in Summit, New Jersey, and the Theodore Vail memorial in Parsippany, New Jersey.
The Columbus Park of Roses, also known as the Whetstone Park of Roses, is a public park and rose garden in Columbus, Ohio. The 13-acre (5.3 ha) park is located within the city's larger Whetstone Park in the Clintonville neighborhood. The free public park is operated by the Columbus Recreation and Parks Department.
Marta McDowell is an American author.