The Gardens at Palmdale Location

Musician Charles A. Lewis once wrote that, “...gardening ultimately leads to spiritual realization.” In many ways the reverse is also true--especially in the case of the Sisters of the Holy Family and the Gardens at Palmdale, one of the Garden Conservancy’s newest family members. Recognition of a divine presence, contemplation, and action animate the lives of service led by the Sisters, the drivers behind this project.

The Palmdale property has a long, significant, and well-documented history. In microcosm it reads as the history of California. From its presettlement history as part of the home of the Ohlone, or Costanoan people, through Spanish rule, a mission land grant, and an agricultural boom, it parallels much of what happened in the rest of the state.

To its lasting benefit, it was acquired by the Sisters of the Holy Family just after World War II, prior to the explosive growth of the area into what we now call Silicon Valley.

The existing garden was created years ago and has been lovingly tended by the Sisters, becoming an oasis and refuge from the swirling world around them. It has also been a much loved community resource, with a significance out of proportion to its five acre size. It became another way for the Order to minister to the poor and needy, especially families.

If gardening truly leads to spiritual realization, it was that realization that breathed life into the idea that this special place should be preserved. That vision, and persistence over many years, led to an innovative multi-stakeholder collaboration between the Sisters, community members (including indigenous Ohlone), governmental agencies, businesses, a real estate developer, and the Garden Conservancy.

The group’s resulting plan does far more than preserve a garden. It provides continued housing for the Sisters and provides most of the financial resources needed for the project through the sale of part of the overall property— and the development of nearly 80 affordable housing units for the community. It’s a manifest expression of that part of the Sisters’ mission to “stand against conditions that demean or undermine the dignity of persons or the sacredness of the family.” popular gathering space while also integrating seamlessly with the building. In 2020, the Garden Conservancy began a five-year partnership in support of the renovation of the museum’s campus.

The effort was one worthy of the giant technology companies that also call the area home. But it was that very intricacy—the web of interacting relationships, complicated planning, financial arrangements, and special needs— that made it difficult for the Sisters to find a preservation organization willing to hold the conservation easement. The easement was a critically important element of the plan as municipal approvals hinged on having a conservation easement in place to protect the garden and dedicate it to public use. The Garden Conservancy was uniquely suited to play this role. Its mandate to “preserve, share, and celebrate America’s gardens and diverse gardening traditions...” and its long history of creating the living collaborations necessary for maintaining entities that would otherwise melt away with time, made it the ideal partner, and the catalyst needed to make the project a reality. As the holder of the easement, the Conservancy is there alongside the Gardens at Palmdale, Inc., the organization created to own and operate the garden, as a resource and a partner in preserving the gardens’ defining features and essential purpose.

The Sisters of the Holy Family realized long ago that gardens and spiritual realization are both ways to feed the soul. Now the rest of the Fremont, CA, community does. too.

Olana State Historic Site Hudson, NY

Olana is a historic house museum and the former residence of Frederic Edwin Church (1826–1900), one of the major figures in the Hudson River School of landscape painting. The estate has a wide view of the Hudson River Valley, the Catskill Mountain,s and the Taconic Range. It is on the National Register of Historic Places and is a National Historic Landmark. From 2008 to 2009, the Garden Conservancy provided support via publicity and participation in a fundraising event to protect the historic views at Olana.

Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden Bishopville, SC

The Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden, a three-acre garden, is a story of plants, sculpture, community, hard work, and inspiration. Self-taught and armed with a hedge trimmer, Pearl Fryar worked for more than twenty years to create and maintain remarkable topiaries from plants that were often salvaged from a local nursery. In 2007, the Garden Conservancy helped to create and incorporate the Friends of Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden, which later became the nonprofit organization, Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden, Inc. For the next ten years, the Garden Conservancy provided technical assistance to the Friends as they planned for preservation of the garden, promoted it to the public, and raised funds for its preservation and maintenance. The Conservancy also gifted Pearl with a cherry picker and hired a project manager for the garden.

Planting Fields Arboretum Oyster Bay, NY

Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park, which includes the Coe Hall Historic House Museum, is an arboretum and state park covering over 400 acres in the town of Oyster Bay, NY. In 1999, the Garden Conservancy provided technical assistance to the Arboretum and, in 2007, it was an Affiliate Garden of the Conservancy. In 2018, the Conservancy conducted a garden documentation interview with the Arboretum’s executive director.

Powell Gardens Kingsville, MO

In 1984, the Powell family partnered with the University of Missouri’s School of Agriculture to develop this site—originally a farm created in 1948 by a prominent Kansas City businessman—as a horticultural resource for the people of Kansas City and the surrounding region. In 2018, the Garden Conservancy sent a letter opposing the siting of an Omaha Steaks Company “factory farm” just three miles from the garden, which threatened the garden with air pollution in the form of particulates, odors, methane, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, and ammonia, as well as polluted water run-off.

The Prouty Garden Boston, MA

The Prouty Garden is located at Boston Children’s Hospital. In 2012, the hospital announced plans to remove the garden in order to expand its facilities. Despite opposition by the Garden Conservancy and other organizations, the garden was demolished in 2016 in order to expand the hospital.

Raemelton Farm Mansfield, OH

Raemelton Farm was established in 1918 by civic leader Frank Black, and was landscaped by famed landscape architect Marian Cruger Coffin, who was responsible for several outstanding gardens and landscapes including those at Winterthur in Wilmington, DE. The Garden Conservancy provided technical assistance in the late 1990s, including furnishing information on conservation easements and reviewing plans and garden archives.

Ragdale Lake Forest, IL

Ragdale is a non-profit artists’ community located on historic Arts and Crafts architect Howard Van Doren Shaw’s country estate, 30 miles north of Chicago. In 2007, after Ragdale contacted the Garden Conservancy for assistance, the Conservancy researched the site and submitted a proposal for a treatment plan of the property, as well as facilitated a charrette and produced a final report.

Rocky Hills Mount Kisco, NY

The beautiful thirteen-acre property and strolling garden in the northern suburbs of New York City is the product of an old-world sense of stewardship and the patient artistry of Henriette and William Suhr. In 2000, the Garden Conservancy, the Westchester County Department of Parks, Recreation, and Conservation, and Henriette Suhr signed an agreement to partner on preserving the garden and eventually transitioning it to become a public garden. A conservation easement was granted to the Conservancy and was subsequently transferred to the Westchester Land Trust. In 2016, Rocky Hills was sold to private owners. It was one of the first gardens to be documented by the Garden Conservancy.

Russell Page Garden at the Frick Collection – New York, NY

The courtyard garden designed by Russell Page at the Frick Collection in New York City made news in 2018 because of the museum’s revised renovation plans. After public criticism (including a press release from the Garden Conservancy in 2014) for disregarding the importance of the garden in earlier designs for remodeling their buildings and grounds, the Frick proposed a new design which promised to preserve the garden with relatively few changes. The Garden Conservancy sent a letter supporting the new design.

Ruth Bancroft Garden – Walnut Creek, CA

Located in California’s Ygnacio Valley, the Ruth Bancroft Garden is recognized as one of America’s finest examples of a dry garden. It is the garden that inspired the founding of the Garden Conservancy and it is our very first preservation project. For more on the Ruth Bancroft Garden, see the case study on page _______.

Shelburne Farms – Shelburne, VT

Shelburne Farms is a nonprofit education center for sustainability, 1,400 acre working farm, and National Historic Landmark on the shores of Lake Champlain. The property is nationally significant as a well-preserved example of a Gilded Age “ornamental farm,” developed in the late nineteenth century with landscaping by Frederick Law Olmsted. In 2003, the Garden Conservancy completed a landscape stewardship master plan and, in 2006, a multi-phased formal garden restoration project was launched. In 2010, the Conservancy designated Shelburne Farms a Preservation Assistance Garden.

Sonnenberg Gardens – Canandaigua, NY

Sonnenberg Gardens and Mansion State Historic Park is a 50acre state park located in the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York. Our notes on this point to the fact that it’s a story we might not want to tell. Misappropriation and stealing of funds by Sonnenberg management, etc. It doesn’t seem like we have had contact with the garden since 2002; more wrong-doing was revealed in 2003.

Springside Landscape Restoration Poughkeepsie, NY

Springside is a 20-acre designed landscape and historic site that was once the country estate of Matthew Vassar, the Poughkeepsie brewer, philanthropist, and founder of Vassar College. It is the only landscape of Andrew Jackson Downing, one of the founders of landscape architecture in America, to survive largely intact. The Garden Conservancy began working with Springside in the mid1990s and Springside officially became a Conservancy preservation project in 2000. The Conservancy provided assistance with grant writing and the creation of a master plan, which Springside implemented.

Steepletop Austerlitz, NY

Steepletop, a farmstead in Austerlitz, NY, served as the home and inspiration of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Edna St. Vincent Millay for the last 25 years of her life. It is a National Historic Landmark. Beginning in the late 1990s, the Garden Conservancy assisted Steepletop with preservation efforts and, in 2003, it was designated a preservation project. The Conservancy assisted with management, landscape, and horticultural preservation planning, as well as the development of a Cultural Landscape Report, which helped guide the restoration of Millay’s kitchen garden.

Stonecrop Gardens Cold Spring, NY

Stonecrop was originally the home of Garden Conservancy founder Frank Cabot and his wife, Anne. The Cabots began creating the gardens in 1958 and, in 1992, Stonecrop became a public garden. Caroline Burgess, the garden’s longtime director, became a member of the Garden Conservancy Steering Committee in 1990. Stonecrop became a supporting organization of the Garden Conservancy in 2000.

Stoneleigh Garden Villanova, PA

Stoneleigh Garden was designed by the Olmsted Brothers firm and is a historically and culturally significant garden in the Philadelphia area. Shortly after opening in 2018, Stoneleigh was threatened by the possible expansion of a local school district. The Garden Conservancy joined with numerous horticultural and conservation organizations and wrote a letter to the school district to oppose their proposed action.

Swan House at Atlanta History Center Atlanta, GA

Located on the grounds of the Atlanta History Center, Swan House was designed by Philip Trammel Shutze in 1928 for Edward and Emily Inman and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2015, a Garden Conservancy Society of Fellows garden-study tour resulted in a grant to assist in the restoration and replanting of Swan House’s iconic Boxwood Garden. The grant also helped uncover evidence of an earlier planning plan for the garden, which led to the discovery of a circle of redbud trees.

Sylvester Manor Educational Farm – Shelter Island, NY

Over time, Sylvester Manor has been transformed from a slaveholding plantation to an Enlightenment-era farm, to a pioneering food industrialist’s estate, and today, to an organic educational farm. In 2020, the Garden Conservancy conceived of and developed a discussion panel for an American Public Gardens Association (APGA) which included Sylvester Manor. The presentation examined how organizations are developing programs to convey a complete picture of their gardens’ historic connection to issues of racial and social injustice. In 2021, Sylvester Manor was the recipient of a Gardens for Good grant.

Ten Chimneys Waukesha, WI

Ten Chimneys was the summer home and gentleman’s farm of Broadway actors Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt, and a social center for American theater. In 1998, the Ten Chimneys Founda- tion purchased the estate and reached out to the Garden Conservancy as they began extensive research and planning for restoration, preservation, and program development.

United States National Arboretum Washington, DC

Established in 1927, the United States National Arboretum is operated by the United States Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service. In 2011, the Garden Conservancy wrote a letter opposing the disposing of the arboretum’s historic boxwood and azalea collections.

University of Virginia Pavilion Gardens Charlottesville, VA

In anticipation of the 50th anniversary of the garden’s refurbishment, the University of Virginia asked for the Garden Conservancy’s help in organizing a garden summit to consider future contributions of these historic gardens to public horticulture in central Virginia. The project was completed in 2004.

Untermyer Park and Gardens Yonkers, NY

A historic 43-acre city public park just north of New York City, Untermyer is a remnant of Samuel J. Untermyer’s 150-acre estate, “Greystone.” In 2011, the Garden Conservancy began serving in an advisory role on management, preservation, and development of the gardens for the benefit of the public. In 2016, the Conservancy helped the Untermyer Gardens Conservancy with vision, organizational programming, collections management policy, interpretive media, and fundraising.

Val Verde Montecito, CA

Val Verde, also known as the Wright Ludington House, is an estate which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995. The Garden Conservancy provided preservation planning assistance to Val Verde from 1996 to 2006. “The garden received attention from the Garden Conservancy Preservation Assistance Center in 2004.” (Several of the entries on the look-book worksheets have this notation, but I’m not sure what it means.)

Van Vleck House & Gardens – Montclair, NJ

Van Vleck House & Gardens is a nonprofit committed to the historic preservation of its early twentieth-century house, an exemplar of classical Mediterranean Revival architecture. Three generations of the Van Vleck family lived on the property and developed the gardens for over 130 years. In 1999, the Garden Conservancy helped to establish the Friends of Van Vleck Gardens and, in 2003, the Conservancy funded a Marco Polo Stufano Fellow who renovated the formal garden and documented its history.

Villa Terrace – Milwaukee, WI

Villa Terrace is a historic house built in 1924 for the Lloyd R. Smith family - an Italian Renaissance-style home on a bluff above Lake Michigan. Since 1966 the house and grounds have housed the Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum. In 1999, the Garden Conservancy provided technical assistance which enabled the Friends group to raise funds and marshal volunteers to restore the garden, which reopened in 2002.

Western Hills Garden Occidental, CA

Western Hills became a Preservation Assistance Garden of the Garden Conservancy in 2007. The Conservancy provided assistance in preservation planning, developing a volunteer program, creating a plant collections inventory, and providing a garden intern. In addition, the Conservancy was instrumental in the formation of a Friends group and assisting with grant proposals for the garden, as well as organizing extensive volunteer work to tend to the garden.

Yew Dell Botanical Garden Crestwood, KY

The creation of self-taught master craftsman and nurseryman

Theodore Klein, this 30-acre property in Crestwood, KY, features open farmland transformed into Arts-and-Crafts-style gardens with unusual specimens and classic stone structures. After Klein’s death and the formation of a board of community volunteers to purchase the property, the Garden Conservancy helped develop the master plan and the technical strategies needed to preserve Yew Dell Botanical Gardens for the enjoyment and education of the public.