Spring 2014

YADDO GARDEN ASSOCIATION
POTPOURRI
SPRING 2014
EDITOR: Margaret Jacobson
We all have our time machines. Some take us
back, they’re called memories. Some take us
forward, they’re called dreams.”
Jeremy Irons
A focal point of President Jean Dugan’s report
was the Saratoga 150 Floral Fete in which the
YGA participated in many ways, particularly in
the decorating of the parade vehicles. At the
same time, the team partnered with The
Creative Place International to sponsor their
August 11 performance of Saratoga Chips at the
Art Center.
Jean also reported that although there were
some challenges in the gardens in 2013, the
weather was beautiful and the pergola, rose
beds, tree roses, entrance garden and rock
garden prospered and enchanted all season.
In this issue of the Potpourri we will be looking
forward to the annual renewal of the Yaddo
Gardens while looking back at the year past.
Our 2013 year ended with the annual
November membership meeting where
accomplishments of the past year were
highlighted. Following is a brief summary of
items of interest that are now part of YGA
memories.
The Docent and Tours reports were highlighted
by the fact that 2013 saw a very busy season
with booked tour groups, garden and ghost
tours and Power Point presentations. In total,
733 people attended these functions, resulting
in an increase of income from the previous year.
A new venture was the issuing of Yaddo
Gardens Gift Certificates, good for either private
garden or ghost group tours.
At the annual meeting it was announced that
financial inflows increased by $4,895 from the
previous year through donations, memberships
and tours. Inflows exceeded outflows by $9,235.
Overall net worth increased as well. As in the
previous year the largest areas of expenditures
were on roses and spraying.
The Garden Volunteers hours totaled 3,175
hours in 2013. Community service volunteers’
hours were increased by 42 hours.
While the total number of YGA volunteer hours
in 2013 decreased 329 hours from the previous
year, they do not reflect the additional hours
given by the YGA team, which made major
commitments of at least 280 hours to the floral
fete through the end of July.
YADDO GARDEN ASSOCIATION
POTPOURRI
SPRING 2014
A FETE FOR THE FLORAL FETE
VOLUNTEERS
The Saratoga 150 Floral Fete was a great effort
for volunteer gardeners from The Heritage
Garden Club and The Schuylerville Garden Club
as well as The Yaddo Garden Association. The
more than 50 volunteers made miles of
evergreen garlands, strung flowers, de-thorned
roses and combined them all into the
decorations and bouquets bedecking The
Starting Gate and the fifteen carriages that led
the parade.
In appreciation of this effort, planning is now
under way to get all these volunteers together
on June 21st to reminisce. It is promised that
there won’t be a single cut rose or evergreen
bough in sight! Jane Wait will host the reunion
that afternoon at the Wait’s lakeside home on
Lake George where the order of the day will be
eating, boating, swimming and renewing old
and new friendships. Let’s hope the weather
cooperates.
EDITOR: Margaret Jacobson
RETREAT AND REFORM ALONG THE
SHORES OF LAKE GEORGE
The featured speaker at the annual meeting was
Megan Springate, who spoke about the
archeological dig that she headed at The
Wiawaka Holiday House on Lake George last
summer. Having experienced a wide range of
previous research projects, Megan has centered
her interest on Post European United States
archeological sites - those dating from the Mid17th to 20th Century.
Wiawaka attracted her interest as a PhD
candidate at the University of Maryland
because of its history as the longest continuous
holiday house still in operation with an
amazingly full and unique source of historical
archives. Written records, however, represent
only a small part of what is done at any site.
Pieces individually and in context fill out the
narrative and provide some differences to what
the written records say and what actually
happened. The archeological process involved
digging up the lawn to set up grids with use of
trowels and mesh to help in sorting by strata
and levels. The artifacts found in each section
were sorted, washed, categorized and analyzed.
YADDO GARDEN ASSOCIATION
POTPOURRI
SPRING 2014
Megan described the history of the Wiawaka
Holiday House and then summarized the
findings to date. Guests were more diverse than
anticipated, coming from within a 250 mile
radius from their homes, and were more
religiously diverse as well, representing every
Christian denomination, with the largest being
Episcopalian. Wiawaka opened in 1903 initially
as a Girl’s Friendly Society which was a moral
purity society founded in England to protect
single urban women from evil and provide
domestic skills. Holiday House was an extension
of the society’s mission to provide affordable
vacations for the working women in the
factories of Troy and Cohoes. The change from
the Girl’s Friendly Society to welcome all
women happened before the 1920’s as
documented in shards found in the
archeological dig. These findings include canned
foods, parasite eggs as found in chamber pot
fragments, a small number of fine china versus
everyday types, toiletries and personal effects.
In the 1920 layer was found a treasure trove of
bottle tops, aspirins, creams and toothbrushes.
These finds all are representative of women’s
lives at the time. Megan tells us that you can
find out more about the excavations at
www.wiawakaproject.com and follow the
Wiawaka Project on Facebook.
EDITOR: Margaret Jacobson
LOOKING FORWARD TO A
WONDERFUL EDUCATIONAL
OPPORTUNITY
YGA has recently received word from Megan
that she is looking for volunteers in the summer
of 2014 to continue in the excavation begun last
year. She reminded us that they will again be
documenting the early years of the Wiawaka
Holiday House by looking at materials the
organizers, staff and visitors left behind. Her
PhD dissertation research involves looking at
the intersections of class and gender in the
early twentieth century and the findings at
Wiawaka are a great example of this.
She reminds us that no archeological experience
is necessary
and volunteers are asked to
volunteer for three or more days with
accommodations and meals available at Holiday
House for a fee. Three areas of the site will be
excavated this year and excavation dates are
Monday to Friday June 16 through July 11,
2014.
Eight hours a day will be spent
excavating with a one hour break for lunch.
Instruction will include archeological methods,
note taking, and basic artifact identification and
interpretation. For more information and to
YADDO GARDEN ASSOCIATION
POTPOURRI
SPRING 2014
sign up for this unique opportunity please
contact Megan Springate at [email protected] or
phone 732-768-2985.
Please contact
http://www.wiawaka.org for rates if interested
in staying over during that time.
THE MORE YOU CAN DREAM THE
MORE YOU CAN DO
Although this year it seemed to live up to the
old song lyrics “spring will be a little late this
year” it is here at last and with it the YGA goes
into top gear. Fortunately we are off to a good
start as the tree roses and fountain plants did
well after their winter storage and spring
planting. Since the last Potpourri update, the
two pergola columns that were showing wear,
have been fixed, as has the poet’s bench. It
has been an ongoing challenge dealing with
water features in the rock garden but hopefully
the water issue will be fixed by the time you
read this newsletter. The working garden year
began in April with the delivery of compost,
fertilizer and deer spray while the water was
turned on for volunteer use and the statues
EDITOR: Margaret Jacobson
were uncovered for the season. Experienced
volunteers came to the gardens on April 26.
Some of the brochures and posters offering
volunteer garden opportunities were distributed
and May 3 brought 7 new volunteers to the
garden for the first time. The sheds have been
cleaned. All new containers were purchased for
2014 and they are now in their usual places.
Those on the plinths next to the marble steps
contain colorful annuals. Evergreen bushes are
placed along the curbs below the pergola.
New roses, which were ordered in the fall, have
arrived and were planted and fertilized in midMay. Fertilizing will continue in June and July
this year. Leaf and disease spraying will have
received its second application by the end of
May. By Memorial Day Weekend the gardens
should be all ready for the season.
A TYPICAL DAY IN THE YADDO
GARDENS
Although the first work day on April 26 is long
past as you read this newsletter, I would like to
share with you an e-mail that Vera Weiss sent
to our president about the experience of the
first work day in the garden for experienced
YADDO GARDEN ASSOCIATION
POTPOURRI
SPRING 2014
volunteers so that you readers can share a little
of the flavor of what garden volunteering is all
about:
EDITOR: Margaret Jacobson
Editor’s note: I am sure the sun was a positive
omen for the YGA Gardens in which all of us are
looking forward to working this year.
“Jean: Just got home from Yaddo. There were
12 people there during the 3 1/2 hours I was in
the gardens this morning.
Donna Bates and Dom De Lorio came around
8:30 and we opened the sheds. Kathy Sweet
came and then Tohru Takekoshi, who brought
some yellow daffodils. Deb Brown, Jim Hart,
Ellen Downing, Charlie DiSanto, Linda Hoyt,
Pat Meaney and Lyn Madden were all there.
Linda brought one of the old pots which she
had spray-painted and it looked pretty good.
She will show it to you on Tuesday.
Dom worked for a while in Pat’s rose bed and
they got all the string off around the roses. Jim
and I along with Deb, Kathy, Donna and Lyn got
the string off the roses in the other beds and
began taking the dirt away from the base of
the roses. Charlie looked over the roses in the
Pergola and was pretty satisfied with their
wintering over.
Ellen Downing and Mary Curtis raked up the
rock garden and Dom raked around Marilyn De
Lorio’s Entrance Garden.
A very good morning. The sun was even
starting to come out when we left!
EPSOM SALTS AND ROSES
As a new venture this year Epsom salts will be
spread on the rose beds on June 1st. They are
entirely composed of Magnesium Sulfate and
roses in particular can greatly benefit from use
of these crucial minerals critical to plant life. It is
said to make foliage greener and healthier and
leads to more canes and flowers. Both cost
effective and gentle on greenery, it has long
been considered a planter’s secret ingredient to
a lovely lush garden. Unlike some other
fertilizers it does not build up in the soil over
time and so is very safe to use. It will be
interesting to see the effect on the roses in the
Yaddo Gardens.
YADDO GARDEN ASSOCIATION
POTPOURRI
SPRING 2014
OTHER GROUPS WHO JOIN IN
VOLUNTEERING IN THE YADDO
GARDENS
The fountains are now open and the fish are
back from their winter home at BOCES. BOCES
has been involved in our projects as part of their
Horticulture Program. This is a tradition which
has been ongoing since YGA first started
working in the gardens. This year they came in
to the gardens on May 6, 20 and 27. Also, in
what has become a new tradition, Senior
Giveback Day on May 23 saw volunteers from
the Saratoga Springs High School Senior Class
again working in the Yaddo Gardens.
Continuing with this tradition of involving the
youth of the area in aiding in our volunteer
work, Barbara Hefter will head a gardening
session with area Girl Scouts on May 31. The
Healthy Living Market has expressed an interest
in again having volunteers from their group
work in the Yaddo Gardens on a Saturday
morning each month of the growing season.
They will be coming June 28 and dates have yet
to be determined for the later months as it will
be necessary to have some experienced
volunteers to guide them.
EDITOR: Margaret Jacobson
DOCENT TOURS AND SCHEDULED
PRESENTATIONS
Drop in tours are scheduled to begin on
Saturday June 14 and will continue Saturdays
and Sundays as well as dark Tuesdays during
racing season. The seasonal tours end on
August 31. As usual, tours begin at 11:00 a.m.
at the lawn fountain featuring the statue of
Dawn being awakened by the Naiads. This year
a new fee has been approved by the YGA Board
of $10.00 per tour participant. Tours are given
by experienced docents and last for about 45
minutes with highlights on the history of the
gardens and the Trasks.
The popular Ghost Tours will begin on Friday,
September 26 and end on Friday, October 31.
These tours will be included on the New York
State Haunted History Trail sponsored by the
New York State Chamber of Commerce. There
will be more news on the Ghost Tours in the fall
issue of the Potpourri. Donna Bates is presently
working on a separate Power Point Presentation
of the Ghost Tour information which is separate
from the regular one highlighting the gardens.
Interested groups are invited to take advantage
of the Power Point.
Some garden group tours have already been
scheduled and more are coming in as I write.
YADDO GARDEN ASSOCIATION
POTPOURRI
SPRING 2014
Gift certificates are available for both the
garden and ghost tours. If your group is
interested in having either a tour or a Power
Point presentation you may contact Katie Hart
at [email protected] or phone and leave a
message for her at the Yaddo Office.
SOROPTIMIST SECRET GARDENS
TOUR DATE IS ANNOUNCED
To mark the 20th anniversary of Secret Gardens
Tour the Soroptimists held a preview party at
the Sunnyside Gardens on May 2nd from 6:00 to
8:00 p.m. hosted by Ned Chapman to which all
YGA volunteers were invited in recognition of
their continuing commitment to the Secret
Garden Tours over the years. The Soroptimist
Secret Garden Tour is scheduled for July 13 this
year. Although Yaddo Gardens are not one of
the formal scheduled stops this year, they are
on the list of suggested gardens to visit. Those
on the garden tours that day are being
encouraged to visit the Yaddo Gardens where
docents will be available throughout to answer
questions and highlight items of historical and
gardening interest.
EDITOR: Margaret Jacobson
YADDO MASTER PLAN STATUS
At the April Board meeting, Steve Dennin,
Director of Development for Yaddo, joined Lynn
Farenell. He updated the members on the
present status of the Yaddo Facilities Master
Plan and,
in particular,
the Mansion
restoration. He emphasized the importance of
the work that the Yaddo Garden Association
continues to do in the garden and its dedication
to the Yaddo mission. Both he and Lynn
Farenell, liaison from Yaddo to the YGA Board,
expressed their appreciation for this.
Steve announced that meetings with New York
State Senators Kathy Marchione and Betty Little
to discuss an appropriation for Yaddo in the
State budget had resulted in an appropriation of
$50,000., an amount which may increase in the
future. The money will go toward restoration
projects for the Mansion and the Yaddo Garden
Association can be included in any future
conversations if we so desire.
He also spoke about the designation of Yaddo as
a National Historic Landmark. A plaque will be
installed on a metal pedestal that would be on a
center line from the Mansion to the large
fountain on the lawn, so that it can be read by
the public with the Mansion in view. The
dedication ceremony will be held on Saturday,
July 26, 2014. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is
expected to attend in what would be her first
YADDO GARDEN ASSOCIATION
POTPOURRI
SPRING 2014
EDITOR: Margaret Jacobson
visit to Yaddo and the gardens. She has been
actively involved in securing the public funding
which is critical to the Yaddo restoration project.
A CHANGE ON THE YGA BOARD
the rose garden where she was to be found on
many a volunteer work day, she was most
appreciated by the many friends she made in
the organization for her warmth, graciousness
and ready wit.
Gifts made to the YGA from
September 10, 2013 until May 7,
2014:
Because Yvonne Bastian has recently been given
new responsibilities in her job which involves
increased travel time, she has regretfully
decided her increased work load will no longer
permit her to continue as a member of the YGA
Board. Yvonne’s second term on the Board was
scheduled to end at the close of 2014 and she
will not be replaced at this time.
Her
responsibilities as Publicity Chairman will now
be assumed by fellow YGA Board member Pat
Mangini with assistance from former Publicity
Chair, Barbara Hefter.
IN MEMORIAM
It is with deep regret that the Yaddo Garden
Association marks the passing of a Founding
Board Member, Mary Murray, in February,
2014. YGA was among the many community
organizations
in
which
she
actively
participated. A former Captain of Bed One in
Gifts made in memory:
Elise Arnold
Audrey Christensen
Norman Brown
Ellen Brown
Robin (Pellegri) Brown
Sandy Robinson, Judy Wyle, and Don
Coletti
Mimi Chatenoy
Jane Adams Wait
Vincent Ryan Corrou
Jane and John Corrou
Kathleen Farrel
Susan and Anthony DePaula
Milton Gray
June Foote Gray
Joseph J. Hannan
Jane and John Corrou
Louise Jordan
Kathy and Charlie DiSanto
Aggie Lewis
Audrey Christensen
Joyce Mastroianni
John and Jane Corrou
Elizabeth Milligi
Carmen Milligi
Mary Murray
Mary Pat Meaney and Joseph Zarzynski
YADDO GARDEN ASSOCIATION
POTPOURRI
SPRING 2014
Sonny Ovitt
Mary Pat Meaney and Joseph Zarzynski
Charles and Katie Richman
Jane Adams Wait
Edward J. Ryan
Barbara and Stuart Hefter
Scout beloved and faithful dog of McKenzie
and Kyle Klopstock
Holly K. Grande
Grace Baker Wheatley
Jane and John Corrou
Gifts made in Honor:
John Catone
Mary and Stephen J. Zabala
Charlie DiSanto's 90th birthday
Jane and John Corrou
Jean Dugan
The Pages
Dr. and Mrs. Edward Finger
Michael Cahill
Elizabeth Fridley
Ward A. Cavanaugh
Clarita Mango
Judith Banks
James Murphy
Mary and Stephen Zabala
Barbara Sutherland
Mellicent and Bill Hawke
Michael Veitch
Mary and Stephen Zabala
Jane Adams Wait
Anonymous
Barbara and Stuart Hefter
Elizabeth Ireland
MaryLou Whitney and John Hendrickson’s
Anniversary
Jane Adams Wait
EDITOR: Margaret Jacobson
Memberships
Sponsor
Jean Dugan and Ben Ford
Carmen Milligi
Advocate
Maggie Moss-Tucker and Paul Hayes Tucker
Contributor
Susan Brynteson
Jane and John Corrou
Ellen and Todd Downing
Steve and Dorothy Harran
Barbara Hefter
Mary Pat Meaney and Joseph W. Zarzynski
Donald and Sheila Nelson
Charles and Katie Richman
Verena and Tohru Takekoshi
Ralph Vincent and Steven Golime
Robert and Shirley Voelker
Nancy and David Wilder
Family
Janet Altamari
David and Helen Porter
George and Beth Vodapivc
Joseph and Joyce Zanchelli
Individual
Minnie Bolster
Eleanor Boyle
Nancy Downing
Lynn Farenell
Nancy O’Leary
Marie Oppenheim
Kathleen Sweet
Martha Van Patten
YADDO GARDEN ASSOCIATION
POTPOURRI
SPRING 2014
Senior/Student
Elaine Bourassa
Ellen Brown
Florence Campion
Gloria Ciejka
Roberta Eaton
Patricia Gallagher
Gay Gamage
Mellicent Hawke
Elizabeth Ireland
Barbara Kolapakka
Joan Lapitsky
Faith Palma
Barbara Parrish
Christine Root
Ruth Talmon
“PLEASURE IS THE FLOWER THAT
PASSES; REMEMBRANCE THE
LASTING PERFUME”…Jean de
Bouflers
At the very first meeting of the Yaddo Garden
Association in 1991 Jane Wait outlined the need
for development of a program for the
restoration and maintenance of the gardens of
Yaddo which had been sadly neglected for some
years. At that meeting goals were established
to raise money to purchase and maintain roses
and to improve the weedy and overgrown
EDITOR: Margaret Jacobson
entrance to the gardens. By the next year
officers had been elected and the first official
meeting of the newly elected Board of Directors
took place. At the same time long range plans
were drawn up for gardens.
As we gaze at the Yaddo Gardens today we can
all rejoice in the restoration of its glory that was
once part of a lost memory. With the help of
the volunteers in the Yaddo Garden Association
plans that have been made over the years have
been brought to fruition and will continue in the
future to delight visitors who come here to find
peace and beauty.
“Good plans shape good decisions.
That’s why good planning helps to
make elusive dreams come true.”

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