“Vajra is connected with the East, the dawn, winter. It is a
winter morning, crystal clear, icicles sharp and glittering, The landscape is
not empty or desolate but is full of all sorts of thought-provoking sharpness.”
-Cutting Through
Spiritual Materialism, Chogyam Trungpa
Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson stretches across nearly 1,000
acres. One of the most historically dense sections is a rectangular walled
garden overlooking the Hudson River with a view of the Catskill mountains in
the distance. Designed around 1903, Blithewood is an Italianate garden, part of
Blithewood Estate which includes a mansion donated to the college. Its angular
geometric structure includes paths and beds, statues, semi-enclosed areas, a
water feature in its center, a copper-roofed pavilion and two pagodas. The garden is open year-round and if free to
tour.
The college celebrated the garden’s 115th
anniversary by kicking off a campaign in 2016 to facilitate its renovation. Because
the site is open to the elements year-round deterioration from over a century
of freeze/thaw cycles is evident. Plaster from the columns of the pavilion is
falling off and brick mortar is crumbling.
Last year a new development in the project was the installation
of interpretive signs for visitors. The Bard Arboretum was awarded a grant from
the Hudson River
Valley Heritage Area to add signs to the site which display the garden’s
structures and history. The signs were researched and designed by a Bard
graduate student then built in 2017 by local firm Terrabilt which specializes
in interpretive, informational, and wayfinding signage that is durable and sustainably
constructed.
The hillside below
the garden is overrun by invasive plants including common reed and Japanese
knotweed and is irregular and steep, making it difficult to maintain. The
school implemented an environmentally sound solution by leasing goats to
remediate the 1.5-acre hill. The goats eat the weeds for weeks at a time,
needing only water and some human help for dense sections. The NYS Department
of Environmental Conservation awarded the college a 3-year Invasive Species
Rapid Response Grant to host the goats for three growing seasons through 2019.
Blithewood
Garden: www.bard.edu/arboretum/gardens/blithewood
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