Keeping the Lights On

One of the greatest misperceptions about Sonnenberg Gardens & Mansion State Historic Park is that it is directly funded by the State of New York. It is not the State but the activities of its non-profit organization that provide the funding for everything at Sonnenberg.

• Those operational costs amount to $2500/day and those funds are needed to run the park, turn the lights on, put paper in the copier, mow the lawns, clean the bathrooms, as well as preserving the historic structures we have. 

• The greenhouses alone cost $200/day to heat and our cold weather, heating season spans a 6-month period.

• During the busy garden season the tram service that helps our guests visit the site use $100 of gasoline/day. 

• Even the electricity, internet service, computer, and staff time used to create this message were costs covered by the non-profit's fund-raising.

So why doesn't the State pay? The non-profit "friends" organization at Sonnenberg is proud to have achieved the highest level affiliation with the State which means all park operational needs are managed by the non-profit. That also means fund-raising is a key activity at Sonnenberg and includes collecting park admission & membership dues, applying for grants, holding special fund-raising events, renting the site for weddings, and seeking donations.

Every dollar that comes in helps to keep the park open to the public and puts new glass in our greenhouse. It also keeps flowers growing and allows you to walk through the beautiful home of Frederick and Mary Thompson. Your support and donation today to our "Share Your Love" fund will help to share Sonnenberg's beauty and history for generations to come. Click the "donate" button to make your gift.

A Sea of Flowers

Each growing season sees a veritable sea of colorful foliage and blooming plants added to our gardens. More than 10,000 are planted each spring in the Italian Garden alone -- and that is only one of the garden areas we maintain. Many of the plants we add each season are tender annuals and perennials. These are plants that cannot survive our bitter and snowy winters and so we overwinter some in our greenhouses but others we buy or grow each season to be planted when the chance of frost is past.

More than 10,000 colorful annuals are planted each spring to
create the floral carpet patterns in the Italian Garden

We also plant and maintain a wide range of hardy perennial plants throughout our park. These are plants that can survive the cold winters to sprout up anew as winter looses its grip and warm days return. These include a wide range of different looks, habits, and blooming times. Some favorite perennials include roses, peonies, coneflowers, hibiscus, balloon flowers, water lilies, tulips, daffodils, lenten rose, bloodroot, and more. 

While these plants do not need special winter care to survive, they do require care throughout the growing season to keep them lush and beautiful. They will also occasionally need to be replaced as the lifespan of green plants vary widely from peonies that can span over generations (they can live to be a 100 years or more) to items like clary sage that is a biennial and dies after blooming in its second year.

The Old Fashioned Garden features a wide variety of blooming
perennial plants from late spring through fall.

Our Rose Garden provides not only another sea of blooms but it perfumes the air once the roses start to bloom in mid to late June. This garden features 2500 white, red, and pink roses -- Mrs. Thompson's favorite colors. Botanically speaking, all roses are perennial shrubs as they have a main woody trunk even though most don't refer to them this way. (Only specific types of roses are generally referred to as "shrub roses.") Like all such woody plants, careful pruning is needed for best shape, health, and blooms plus other care throughout the season is required to maintain the best health and showy display. 

Over 2500 rose plants are featured in our Rose Garden

Besides the flowers in our nine historic gardens, color and floral delights are all throughout the site in small corner gardens, containers, and in our arboretum. A changing tapestry of color and shapes greets every Sonnenberg guest every day.

Spring bulbs add bright color 

While we operate in cooperation with New York State, we are not funded by the State. All gardening needs at Sonnenberg -- and there are many -- are funded through the efforts of our nonprofit organization. Your donation will help to keep the flowers blooming and growing at Sonnenberg for years to come. To make your gift, click the donate button below.

"Happiness will grow if you plant the seeds of love in the garden of hope 

with compassion and care."

- Debasish Mridha

Restoration - A Work in Progress

Preservation, renovation, and restoration efforts at Sonnenberg Gardens is an ever on-going activity as the estate features many structures, statues, and gardens each in need of specialized care. Over the last ten years, $4 million dollars of improvements have been made. Some improvements, like new roofing or statue cleaning, may go largely unnoticed while other work, like this year's Palm House restoration in our greenhouse complex, is hard to miss.

One of the next items slated for restoration is the "Glorietta" in our Italian Garden. The Glorietta is a Garden Folly which is an eccentric or extravagant structure created as a garden or landscape decoration. The Glorietta is one of our most unique and interesting garden pieces and can be seen below.

William Hornaday in his book Masterpieces of Garden Making, published in 1917, has this to say about the Glorietta:

At the southwestern corner of the garden there rises a light and airy white marble summer house, with a domed canopy of iron grille work. I do not know what to call that feature, precisely; but it was imported from Italy, and it is the particular long-distance architectural feature of this garden. In one sense it is an informality; for it is a conspicuous side effect, balanced by nothing. Its real purpose is to carry a strong impression of artistic value clear down the length of the garden, and into its most remote corner.

Age and weather have been hard on the century-old carved marble and wrought iron components of the Glorietta. It is in need of specialized and expensive conservation care. These detailed images show some of the unique design elements as well as examples of the damage the years have caused. 

Sonnenberg Glorietta

Column Base Detail

Column Capital Detail

Reverse View

Ironwork Dome

While we operate in cooperation with New York State, we are not funded by the State. All operational needs and restoration activities at Sonnenberg are funded through the efforts of our nonprofit organization, Your donation will go far in helping to preserve this and other historic structures at Sonnenberg which are irreplaceable treasures. To make your gift, click the donate button below.

2016 Volunteer Recognition

On November 6, 2016, Sonnenberg held its annual Volunteer Recognition Dinner. This dinner is meant to be a fun event where food, laughs, and stories are shared by all in recognition of the generosity and commitment of all of Sonnenberg's volunteers. More than 104 volunteers were in attendance. Key accomplishments and recognition were shared and are as follows.

Volunteers of the Year
Frank Tischer
Dolores Perkins

Frank repainted the arbor at the Belvedere this summer donating over 275 hours for this project. Dolores has been volunteering for over 15 years, the last 5 years she has been the Lead volunteer for the Rose Garden.

Volunteer Hours
Sonnenberg Volunteers shared over 18,000 hours during the 2016 season.

Milestones
Many volunteers were recognized for hitting milestones in hours volunteered.

1000 Hours

• Bonnie Cosgrove
• Charlie Gibson
• Joe Schepisi
• Mary jo Gigliotti
• Pat Quist

​2000 Hours

• Bev Maves
• Judy Holcomb
• Nancy Beecher
• Rita Bavineau

6000 Hours

• Helen Myers
• Kathie Linse​

2016 Volunteers of the Year: Frank Tischer & Dolores Perkins

There's a Mushroom House?

Even though I have visited Sonnenberg Gardens since I was young, that was what I said when I first heard of it. And while it sounds like an eclectic architectural style from the 1960's, the Mushroom House was created during the Thompsons' era at Sonnenberg for the aptly named purpose of growing mushrooms.

While its condition does not allow for tours and visits, visitors can see the exterior signs of the Mushroom House during their visit.

The entrance to the Mushroom House is located at the Gardener's Cottage, which also is the location of the Sonnenberg Administrative offices. (Access to the Mushroom House is NOT allowed.)

Skylights for this underground area were made from glass and steel and set into the ground above. They look rather like decorative manhole covers and are located next to the cafe' (on the greenhouse side). Not all of the skylights have weathered the 100+ years well and some are missing some or all of the handmade glass disks.

Be sure to look for this little known piece of Sonnenberg on your next visit!

But tho' an old man, I am but a young gardener

It tells you that our third United States President understood well what it was to be a gardener and a lover of plants. It means that you will spend your life in the joy of learning new things.

Photography in the Gardens

With our hands-on photography workshop coming up in 2 weeks, I've been thinking a lot about the photos I've snapped here - and it is many. I take hundreds of photos each year of Sonnenberg alone. Last summer I decided to have fun taking photos in the Japanese Garden with an origami crane I folded up for the occasion - and it was a lot of fun!

Simple props like a pebble, leaf, flower, or pine cone can also make for very simple and beautiful images. Try it - I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

I should say one of the things I am very passionate about with photographs is the post picture taking process. While I will crop and occasionally make minor adjustments to exposure or levels to better match the image to what I saw, I believe the best photographs are what you saw and the camera captured. I feel that when the images are heavily modified via Photoshop and other digital tools, they become digital art and are no longer in the realm of photography. I'm not saying that is bad, just a different art. 

The National Geographic, always known for the stunning photos, has this to say about digital darkroom techniques for one of their activities. Some great advice for you to try out.

Origami Crane in the Japanese Garden

Neptune Gets a Facelift

Due to a conservation grant award from the Greater Hudson Heritage Network, last year we were able to do some work on the Neptune fountain in our Italian Garden. If you are unfamiliar with the fountain, it is the focal point for the our iconic Italian Garden. The sculpture is of Neptune with a sea creature and it is centrally placed on the edge of a large water feature. Neptune is holding a creature between his legs and left hand while his right hand is raised, clutching a club-like object with which he appears to be thrashing the creature between his legs. Seasonally, water spurts from the mouth of the creature into a basin below Neptune’s feet. Historically the basin was surrounded by three carved, oversized sea-shells on the water side but these shells have been removed from the fountain at some time in the past.

The conservation work mostly consisted of removing mineral and biological deposits that had built up on the statue - see the images below for the before and after shots.

A huge thanks goes out to the Greater Hudson Heritage Network for allowing us to help preserve the most prominent and probably recognizable of our statuary collection!

Historic View of the Fountain/Statue:

 Before Treatment:

After Treatment:  

The Natural Connection

An early visit to Sonnenberg Gardens

In this world of ever-increasing technological dependence and proliferation, a necessary element and natural connection has vanished from too many of our young people's lives -- that is the contact and experience with Nature itself.

Numerous studies show that there are benefits to overall physical health as well as mental health and cognitive abilities in spending time in our natural, outdoor settings. No place is this more true than with our children. But sadly fewer and fewer children today are experiencing the joy and benefits of outdoor time. It is not, however, a difficult or impossible problem to solve.

My own children had outdoor experiences even before they could walk. They cooed and laughed at trees like they were telling the best joke in the world (true story) from strollers, arms, or blankets. When more mobile, they visited public gardens, playgrounds, and hiking trails on their own two legs. Over the years, they have helped in my vegetable gardens and they have played on swings. They raced along paths. They learned much botany and other natural sciences from me that has fanned the flame of their life-long love affair with science. They picked up colorful fall leaves and have built snowmen. They have hiked and fished. They have smelled the flowers. They have dug up fossils and skipped stones. They have learned to love and respect the natural world - which is so key to becoming good stewards of our planet.

A much later visit to Sonnenberg

My boys visited Sonnenberg Gardens initially from strollers. They quickly got mobile and absolutely loved the kid's adventure maps and scavenger hunts. They would race ahead looking for the next item to find. We brought picnic lunches and enjoyed them under shady boughs, even though we only lived a few minutes away. It was a great adventure. We enjoyed every minute of the time and made memories that are priceless.

Take your children outdoors. Share with them what you love about it. You don't have to go far as public parks and gardens are just around the corner.

Share the joy of being outdoors and make memories that will last a lifetime.