The Ruth Bancroft Garden

Walnut Creek, CA

In days gone by, stories always began, “Once upon a time...” If ever a tale deserved that opening, it would be that of the Ruth Bancroft Garden and the role it played in the formation of the Garden Conservancy. There was no Garden Conservancy when Frank Cabot paid his first visit to Ruth Bancroft in Walnut Creek, CA, in the late 80s. Until he visited, he hadn’t met Ruth or her magnum opus. And we have it on good authority that he was no fan of “spiny and spiky” things.

Frank Cabot was an inveterate garden visitor. I see visiting a garden as basically an emotional and sensual experience, as well as something that is filled with surprise. Emotional? Sensual? This was likely the most dangerous garden he’d ever visited. Spikes and spines and glochids, oh my! He was certainly surprised.

Penelope Hobhouse, world-famous doyenne of the British gardening world who has designed gardens in many countries and for many luminaries, had passed along a recommendation about this woman and this garden, calling it “one of the finest gardens in North America.” That would surely have been enough to excite interest, even for a “dry” garden. She undoubtedly mentioned the plants that comprised it. Nonetheless, it does not sound as if he was prepared for what he saw: of the Holy Family since 1948, the gardens were conveyed to the nonprofit Gardens at Palmdale, Inc. in 2019, who worked with the Garden Conservancy to develop a conservation easement for the property that will protect it in perpetuity. For more information on the Gardens at Palmdale, see case study on page _____).

“I shall never get over the excitement and the sense of wonder that I experienced when I first visited your garden. I was something that does not happen very often in a garden visitor’s lifetime,” Garden Conservancy founder Frank Cabot wrote in a letter to Ruth Bancroft nearly ten years after his first visit.

He immediately acknowledged the greatness of both the garden and the gardener. Cacti, agave, and other succulents were not only mature and beautifully grown; they were displayed in a garden whose plot continued to unfold as it was walked. Ruth began creating her garden in the 1970s, and after some early design assistance from Lester Hawkins, founder of Western Hills Rare Plant Nursery in Occidental, CA, she single-handedly turned a personal passion into a nationally recognized horticultural wonder filled with remarkable specimens. For example, at 50+ years of age, and measuring more than three feet high, the garden’s rare Lobivia formosa is thought to be the largest specimen in northern California, while the imposing but whimsical Yucca filifera evokes a humanoid character. A pioneer of drought-tolerant gardening, Ruth continued to be a guiding force in the garden’s development until she passed away at the age of 109.

On the way home, and equally struck by the Bancroft garden, Anne, Frank’s wife, casually brainstormed the creation of some sort of organization to focus on preserving amazing gardens like the one they’d just seen—so outstanding, so unique, so American.

The rest, as is often said, is history. The Garden Conservancy was formed and its first preservation project was the transition of the Ruth’s garden into a public resource that will inspire and educate visitors for generations to come. The Conservancy also pioneered the first use of a conservation easement to protect a garden at the Ruth Bancroft Garden in 1993. Critical to the success of the Ruth Bancroft Garden (which now welcomes tens of thousands of visitors each year) were committed volunteers from the local and regional community. While the garden now boasts a highly skilled, professional staff, volunteers continue to form the backbone of the garden’s management.

The story of the Garden Conservancy is, now and forever, inextricably tied to that of the Ruth Bancroft Garden. It’s not just that Ruth’s garden is now mature, packed with a collection of collections, a beautifully designed showcase for plants many people only, if ever, see in stunted form in pots on windowsills. It tells its own story, a mystical, magical, and transcendent story about a passion, a vision and persistence; a story and a feeling that Cabot identifies in his letter to Ruth—one that is only experienced in the very finest gardens.

Gardens of Alcatraz San Francisco, CA

For 150 years, a succession of soldiers, families of correction officials, and inmates cultivated gardens hewn on the rocky, windswept island of Alcatraz. For ten years, the Garden Conservancy led the effort to rehabilitate the Gardens of Alcatraz in partnership with the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy and the National Park Service. In 2014 the restoration project completed successfully. For more information on the Gardens of Alcatraz, see case study on page ______).

Garland Farm Bar Harbor, ME

Garland Farm was the ancestral home of Lewis Garland, Beatrix Farrand’s property manager at Reef Point. In 2003, the Garden Conservancy supported efforts to acquire the property for public use, education, and its operations by the newly-formed nonprofit organization, the Beatrix Farrand Society. Garland Farm was purchased from the Eveland estate in 2004.

Green Gables Woodside, CA

Green Gables is a 74-acre estate built in the early 1900s for prominent San Francisco businessman and philanthropist Mortimer Fleishhacker, Sr. The Garden Conservancy has held a conservation easement on Green Gables since 2003. In 2011, a garden party at Green Gables was the inaugural event for the Garden Conservancy West Coast Council’s development committee and raised more than $50K to support the Conservancy’s George W. Rowe Education Fund.

Greenwood Gardens Short Hills, NJ

Greenwood Gardens, a 28-acre formal Italianate garden, has been a Garden Conservancy preservation project since 2002. The Garden Conservancy directly managed the garden from 2003-2005 and conducted a feasibility study for Greenwood in 2004. With technical support and guidance from the Garden Conservancy, Greenwood Gardens has made a strong transition from private to public garden and obtained its nonprofit status in 2005. Greenwood attended the first Garden Conservancy Preservation in 2008 and is a supporting organization of the Garden Conservancy.

Greystone Mansion & Gardens Beverly Hills, CA

The Greystone Mansion, also known as the Doheny Mansion, is a Tudor Revival mansion on a landscaped estate with distinctive formal English gardens, completed in 1928 for oil baron Edward Donehy. In 2010, the Garden Conservancy advocated for garden with a letter opposing proposed development which threatened destruction of the house and gardens.

Hakone Gardens Saratoga, CA

Hakone Gardens is an 18-acre traditional Japanese garden and is recognized as one of the oldest Japanese-style residential gardens in the Western Hemisphere. Beginning in 2000, the Garden Conservancy provided Hakone Gardens with technical assistance, including the completion of a Cultural Landscape Report, a management plan, a master plan, and an interpretive plan.

Hannah Carter Japanese Garden – Los Angeles, CA

This garden was designed in 1959 by noted Japanese garden designer Nagao Sakurai. In 1964, the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) was deeded the garden by Edward Carter, who named the garden in honor of his wife, Hannah. After announcing plans to sell the garden in 2011, UCLA was sued by the Carter family for breach of donor intent. For the next several years, the Garden Conservancy assisted the Carter family in its efforts to preserve the garden. In 2016, the garden was purchased and, in 2017, the Garden Conservancy wrote a letter supporting designation of the garden as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument. In that same year, both the house and the garden were subsequently designated official landmarks.

Harkness Gardens Waterford, CT

The Harkness Gardens, which were designed by Beatrix Farrand and Marian Cruger Coffin, are located in Harkness Memorial State Park, the 200-acre former estate of Edward Stephen Harkness and his wife Mary Stillman Harkness, who were the beneficiaries of a fortune amassed by Edward’s father Stephen V. Harkness, a silent partner of John D. Rockefeller in the Standard Oil Corporation. In 1993, Friends of the Harkness contacted the Garden Conservancy for possible assistance with preserving the gardens. In 1995, the Garden Conservancy met with the Friends group for a strategic planning meeting with the specific goal of defining possibilities for the and determining the resources needed for those possibilities, as well as developing future course of action.

Harland Hand Memorial Garden

El Cerrito, CA

Harland Hand, inspired by the principles of fine art and rock formations in the High Sierra, designed this half-acre hillside garden with breathtaking views of San Francisco Bay. Shortly before Hand’s death, he asked the Garden Conservancy to explore the possibility of preserving his garden for public benefit. After Hand’s death, in 1998, the Conservancy continued to provide advice on evaluating the feasibility of transitioning the garden to become a public entity. Issues of access, financing, and governance seemed over-whelming to the estate and the garden was sold to a private individual.

The Hermitage Ho-Ho-Kus, NJ

The Hermitage, a fourteen-room Gothic Revival house museum built in 1847-48, is a National Historic Landmark. In 1992, the Garden Conservancy sponsored an educational working symposium to assist the Friends of the Hermitage in establishing a landscape preservation plan. At the request of the Garden Conservancy, the Olmstead Center for Landscape Preservation assisted in the preparation of planting plans for the grounds, which were be based on an 1890s photograph of the site. The Conservancy offered advice as planting plans were being developed and assisted with fundraising efforts to maintain and restore the period landscape.

Heronswood Garden Kingston, WA

Heronswood is a 15-acre botanical garden and nursery established by Dan Hinkley and Robert Jones in 1987. In 2000, they sold it to the W. Atlee Burpee Company. Six years later, Burpee closed the Kingston nursery, at which time the Pacific Northwest Horticultural Conservancy (PNHC) began plans to purchase the garden. In 2007, the Garden Conservancy acted as an intermediary between Burpee and PNHC. In 2012, the Heronswood botanical garden and Heronswood Nursery Company were sold to the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe, which stated that it is committed to maintaining the garden as an asset to the community.

Hills and Dales Estate / Ferrell Gardens – LaGrange, GA

The Ferrell Gardens at Hills and Dales Estate were begun in 1841 by Sara Coleman Ferrell and today represent one of the oldest surviving parterre gardens in the American south. In 1997, as the family prepared for the future public operation of the garden, they consulted with the Garden Conservancy. Upon Alice Callaway’s death in 1998, the property was bequeathed and entrusted to the Fuller E. Callaway Foundation with the request that it be used for the enjoyment and instruction of the visiting public.

Hirshhorn Museum Washington, DC

In 2020, the Garden Conservancy joined other cultural and preservation organizations in raising concerns about the redesign of the sunken sculpture garden at the Hirshhorn Museum on the National Mall in Washington, DC. The proposed redesign threatened to destroy key features of the postwar landscape design, a masterwork of Modernist landscape architecture by Lester Collins.

Hollister House Garden – Washington, CT

A classic garden in the English manner with a loosely formal structure, situated in the Litchfield hills of northwestern Connecticut, Hollister House Garden is a supporting organization of the Garden Conservancy. With garden owner George Schoellkopf, the Garden Conservancy has worked to facilitate the property’s transition to nonprofit ownership and to become a public garden. The Conservancy was also instrumental in launching Hollister House Garden’s Garden Study Weekend, as a cosponsor.

Hortense Miller Garden Laguna Beach, CA

Established in 1959, this garden covers two-and-a-half acres of the upper slopes of Boat Canyon in Laguna Beach, California. In 2005, the Garden Conservancy assisted with fundraising strategies and the overall assessment of plans to sustain the garden.

Hortulus Farm Garden and Nursery – Wrightstown, PA

Hortulus Farm Garden and Nursery, a 100-acre, eighteenth-century farmstead in Wrightstown, PA, was created and is owned by garden and event designer Renny Reynolds and the late garden writer Jack Staub. In 2004, the Isaiah Warner Farmstead was added to the National Register of Historic Places. In 2014, Hortulus was designated an Affiliate Garden of the Garden Conservancy, an extension of an already strong working relationship between the two organizations for more than ten years.

Innisfree Garden Millbrook, NY

Innisfree Garden was established between 1930 and 1960 as the private garden of Walter and Marion Beck, inspired by scroll paintings of the eighth-century Chinese poet and painter Wang Wei. With the help of landscape architect Lester Collins from Harvard University, individual garden scenes inspired by the Chinese paintings were connected to an overall landscape around a glacial lake, in keeping with the ecological surroundings. Innisfree is a Public Garden Partner of the Garden Conservancy. In 2019, Innisfree was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

James Rose Center Ridgewood, NJ

The James Rose Center, a nonprofit research and study foundation, is headquartered at the former home of landscape architect James Rose, which he built in 1953. In the 1990s, the Garden Conservancy assisted in saving James Rose’s garden and home and transforming them into the James Rose Center. In 1994, the Garden Conservancy collaborated with the James Rose Center to form an Advisory Council to develop programming and support and, in 1997, the formation of the James Rose Conservancy.

The Jens Jensen Formal Garden at Humboldt Park Chicago, IL

The Jens Jensen Formal Garden, an iconic circular garden designed and built in 1908 by noted prairie-school landscape architect Jens Jensen, is situated near the center of Humboldt Park, a 219-acre parkland located in the ethnically diverse Humboldt Park neighborhood of Chicago. In 2016, the Garden Conservancy, the Chicago Park District, and the Chicago Parks Foundation announced a new partnership to revitalize the garden, marking its first major project in the upper Midwest.

The John Fairey Garden Hempstead, TX

The John Fairey Garden is the creation of John Fairey, design professor, plant explorer, and founder of Yucca Do Nursery. The garden brings together rare, drought-tolerant plants native to the southern United States and the remote mountains of Mexico and Asia. The sculptural quality of these plantings echoes the international-caliber collection of Mexican folk art displayed in the gallery. The Garden Conservancy holds a conservation easement on the property assisted the John Fairey Garden Conservation Foundation in public outreach and strategic planning for the garden’s future as a public garden and study center. For more information on the garden, see case study on page _____.

John P. Humes Japanese Stroll Garden

Mill Neck, NY

The Humes Garden is a fine example of a Japanese stroll garden in the Northeast United States, seamlessly integrating ageless Japanese landscape techniques with the woodland terrain of Long Island’s North Shore. The Garden Conservancy was instrumental in saving the garden from closing in 1993 and managed the garden on behalf of the Humes Japanese Garden Foundation for twenty years. For more information on the garden, see case study on page ____.

Juliet Low Gordon Birthplace Savannah, GA

In 2018, proposed renovation of the Juliette Gordon Low House in Savannah, GA, threatened to destroy a garden designed by Clermont Lee in the 1950s. Gordon Low was the founder of the Girl Scouts of the USA. Clermont Huger Lee was the first registered female landscape architect in Georgia. The Garden Conservancy sent two letters – one in 2018 and one in 2020 – encouraging the consideration of alternative renovation plans that would preserve the garden.

Justin Smith Morrill Homestead Strafford, VT

The Justin Smith Morrill Homestead is the historic Carpenter Gothic home of United States Senator Justin Smith Morrill in Strafford, VT, and was one of the first declared National Historic Landmarks, in 1960. In 1999, the Garden Conservancy advised the newly formed Friends group and, in 2002, made a grant to help implement the preservation master plan.

Kaiser Rooftop Garden Oakland, CA

Inspired by the rooftop garden at Rockefeller Center in New York City, industrialist Henry Kaiser hired the landscape architecture firm of Osmundson & Staley to design a garden atop the parking garage next to his company’s headquarters in downtown Oakland, CA. The garden opened in 1960 as the first “true” post-World War II rooftop garden in the U.S. In 2011, the Garden Conservancy wrote a letter of support for redevelopment of the garden and, in 2019, sent a letter opposing a revised plan that would result in shadowing of the garden.

Keil Cove Tiburon, CA

Bluff Point is 14.5 acres at the eastern end of the Tiburon Peninsula and includes about 2,000 feet of San Francisco Bay shoreline. The property shares this part of the peninsula with the 30-acre Keil Cove property, which has belonged to the Keil family since the 1880s. The Garden Conservancy holds a conservation easement on the property and conducts annual monitoring.