PLT BRIDGE GARDENS – November

November 4, 2014

November 14, 2014

November 25, 2014

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Peconic Land Trust: BRIDGE GARDENS

 

Bridge Gardens was established in 1988 by Harry Neyens and Jim Kilpatric, who designed and installed the gardens over the ensuing 10 years. In 1997, Bridge Gardens Trust was created as a charitable corporation to maintain and preserve the gardens. In 2008, Neyens and Kilpatric donated Bridge Gardens to the Peconic Land Trust. Since operated under the auspices of the Trust, Bridge Gardens has grown as a horticultural oasis in the heart of Bridgehampton, and has been the setting for a broad array of cultural and educational programs, including its annual lecture series. Joining the Trust in 2008 as Garden Director, Rick Bogusch has become a locally known expert in garden design and planning, as well as for his culinary acumen, using plants found throughout the garden.

In 2012, Bridge Gardens adopted a mission to serve as a multi-purpose, multi-disciplinary outdoor classroom, demonstration garden and community resource – and tied the Gardens purpose more closely to the mission of the Peconic Land Trust. With this in mind, the Gardens’ vegetable bed, planted in 2010, doubled in size. In the Outer Garden, two large demonstration beds were created alongside the rose garden and planted with cover crops to demonstrate techniques for improving soil fertility – in both an attractive and beneficial way. Additionally, the programs planned at Bridge Gardens during the Spring, Summer and Fall all provide an educational component tied to sustainable garden and living practices.

Bridge Gardens will be open weekends through the end of October. Summer hours, which include Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, will begin Memorial Day weekend. Bridge Gardens covers over five acres and consists of an Inner Garden and an Outer Garden. Developed first, the Inner Garden features a large, meticulously-trimmed knot garden surrounded by beds of 180 different culinary, medicinal, ornamental, and textile and dyeing herbs. Overlooking these plantings, the garden house is the manager’s residence/education center. In the Outer Garden, the favorite attraction is a collection of antique and modern roses. Bridge Gardens also contains animal topiaries, perennial beds and borders, a water garden, woodland paths, a hidden bamboo room, double hedgerows of privet with viewing ports, and specimen shrubs and trees.

www.peconiclandtrust.org

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Site map courtesy of the Peconic Land Trust.

Photographs © Jeff Heatley.

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