Wave Hill Garden Highlights
By Bazona Bado
Nature lovers descend on Wave Hill when trees and flowers start to bloom.
Standing in front of Perkins Visitor Center, three volunteers ask visitors if they want to join the “Garden Highlights Walk.”
Laura Green, Kathleen Collins, and Laurie Sexton begin the tour at 11 a.m. April 28, with two groups of 10 visitors.
As she walks with her visitors, Laura Green, who has volunteered for 10 years, relates the history of Wave Hill. She sits at the edge of a fence that overlooks the Hudson River.
William Lewis Morris built Wave Hill as a country home in 1843. Theodore Roosevelt and Mark Twain both spent time in the estate. In 1903, Georges W. Perkins purchased Wave Hill and in 1960 the Perkins–Freeman family gave it to the city of New York. Today Wave Hill has 65,000 visitors each year and is open to the public from April to October.
It is a sunny April day, birds are chirping and a cool breeze is blowing. Visitors listen to Green as they tour some of the 28 acres of gardens. She shows them the Flower Garden that includes roses and clematis. Next are the Herb and Dry Garden, Wild Garden, and Aquatic Garden. Laurie Sexton, who joined the group of volunteers this year, says she has a kind of love for the garden.
Most of the visitors on the 28th live in New York. Sheila Bligin has been lived in Brooklyn for almost 25 years. She spends her spare time visiting the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Bligin says she will come again in June when the trees are entirely in bloom. Gessica C., who is from Italy and has been in New York for a year with her husband, says she learned names of flowers and she enjoys the open spaces. “I will come again with my husband,” she said.
Renuka Reiji came with her sister Monica Sha from India. They say they enjoy the flowers, trees and outdoors. She says she visited Wave Hill 25 years ago when her sister visited for her first time.