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Arts & Entertainment

Croton Arboretum Garden Tour and Plant Sale

The Jane E. Lytle Memorial Arboretum’s 16th annual garden tour and plant sale will be held on Sunday, July 15 from 12:30 PM to 5 p.m. This ever-popular summer event will offer participants a private, self-guided tour of seven beautiful gardens in the Croton-Ossining area. The tour coordinators, Laura Seitz and Gill Mader, have selected a variety of landscape settings created by local residents who have generously offered to open their private gardens to the public.

Among the sites on the tour are:

  • A garden that was transformed from dense shade to a more sunlit space after the Halloween 2011 snowstorm, including a wetland and stream reached by paths and a wooden boardwalk.
  • Two village gardens, side by side, that show what interesting and varied results can be achieved on small plots.
  • A striking modern house, surrounded by rocks, stone paths and terraces, is the backdrop for a garden in a streambed, featuring perennials that emerge from the areas of naturally occurring water-loving plants.
  • An ivy-covered older home, with a Hudson River view, surrounded by mature specimen trees and bushes, and a large lawn bordered by beds of annuals and perennials.
  • The one acre garden of a professional horticulturist, with unusual perennials as well as wildflowers, ferns, beds of raspberries and blackberries and many potted tropical plants.
  • Last we have a special treat—a tour of the charming gardens (and the communal vegetable garden) of the historic Methodist Campwoods Grounds in Ossining. Established in 1831—and said to be the oldest Methodist camp meeting in the United States—the site is now the secular home to 45 families who have converted turn-of-the-century gingerbread summer cottages into full-time homes.


Tickets for the tour are $20 each (or $35 for two, if purchased in advance). The tour is limited to 200 participants, so order your tickets today by calling Carol Shanesy, 271-7645, or Laura Seitz, 271-3265.

Tour maps and any remaining tickets will be available on Sunday, July 15, from 12:15 to 3:30 p.m. at St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church, 6 Old Post Road North, Croton-on-Hudson.

All tour profits benefit the Croton Arboretum and Sanctuary, Inc. a volunteer, non-profit organization that provides environmental stewardship for 20+ acres of wetlands and woods at the Jane E. Lytle Arboretum in Croton-on-Hudson. For more information visit www.crotonarboretum.org.

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