From the Director's Desk: Springing Forward

It seems just yes­ter­day we were ring­ing in the New Year and await­ing snow for our Sec­ond Sun­day Snow­shoe events. Since then, Lan­dis has been award­ed three sub­stan­tial grants, tak­en on a his­toric land­scape design for the Bulls Head Tav­ern, fin­ished the design plans for the Meet­ing House bath­rooms, and start­ed work­ing on both the Spring Plant, Book and Bake Sale and the Live at Lan­dis Full Moon Con­cert Series! In addi­tion, we’ve just pub­lished our 2015 Cal­en­dar of Events, which is filled with fam­i­ly-friend­ly edu­ca­tion­al pro­grams, star par­ties, tours, class­es, and performances.

In Jan­u­ary, Lan­dis received approval from the Com­mu­ni­ty Arts Grant Fund and the Greene Coun­ty Coun­cil on the Arts for a $2400 grant to help fund our pop­u­lar Live at Lan­dis Full Moon Music Series. The Arts and Enter­tain­ment Com­mit­tee, head­ed by Des­o­la­tion Road Stu­dios founder Jim Miller, has been book­ing tal­ent­ed per­form­ers. Already on this year’s cal­en­dar are Steve Can­dlen, Mark Ema­na­tion and Soul Sky, and Tim Far­rell. Sev­er­al of these pro­fes­sion­al musi­cians will be appear­ing at Lan­dis for the first time. As usu­al, we will offer reduced tick­et prices to Lan­dis mem­bers, with no charge for chil­dren 12 and under. Check our web­site for show dates and oth­er information.

In Feb­ru­ary, anoth­er grant award let­ter arrived, bring­ing in $2000 from the Nor­cross Wildlife Foun­da­tion to be used for pre­sen­ta­tion equip­ment. The equip­ment cur­rent­ly avail­able has lim­it­ed the num­ber and type of pre­sen­ta­tions I could make to off-site groups. Now I can eas­i­ly cre­ate more cur­rent and updat­ed edu­ca­tion­al pro­grams and spread the word about Lan­dis, hor­ti­cul­ture, and old growth.

Lan­dis received yet anoth­er grant, this one from the Sen­tinel Plant Net­work for a num­ber of full col­or met­al signs to raise aware­ness of insect pests and plant dis­eases in our area. These signs will be placed in key areas at the Arbore­tum as an inte­gral part of the infor­mal envi­ron­men­tal learn­ing avail­able to visitors, 

Last fall, Lan­dis was asked to design a Fed­er­al Peri­od land­scape for the Bulls Head Tav­ern in Cobleskill. Dur­ing the win­ter his­tor­i­cal­ly accu­rate designs were researched and a plan was drawn to scale. Plant­i­ng is slat­ed to begin this spring.

The Meet­ing House bath­room addi­tions designs were final­ized and put out to bid, and it appears that this two-year Arbore­tum Cap­i­tal Cam­paign Project will begin some­time this sum­mer. The wed­ding sea­son is fast approach­ing, and these facil­i­ties will help us real­ize our goal of mak­ing the Meet­ing House a three-sea­son venue for sev­er­al types of events. The Arbore­tum is very grate­ful for our membership’s sup­port of the project. 

After sev­er­al cold months and seem­ing­ly end­less snow, the long await­ed sea­son of spring approach­es, as does the Arboretum’s sig­na­ture Spring Plant, Book, and Bake Sale. Thanks to Cindy King and Jeff Schworm, the prop­a­ga­tion room and green­house will soon be filled with ​“Lan­dis Grown” herbs, veg­eta­bles, and more. The sale will also offer sev­er­al hardy ferns and peren­ni­als as well as native and unique trees, shrubs, and wet­land plants.

It may not quite be spring yet, but things are def­i­nite­ly bloom­ing at the Arboretum.