Bees and Larkspur Detail from 19th Century Rochester Nursery Plate Book. Click to see Full Plate.

Over the last few years,  the  Highland Park Neighborhood Association has held an annual exhibit at Highland Park’s Lower Reservoir Gatehouse where we have been guests of the City of Rochester Bureau of Water crew (which was once known as “Rochester Water Works”.)   As such we have come to respect the tens of thousands of other residents of this historic structure….an active and healthy hive of Honey Bees who live in the Northern Wall of the structure.  The timing of our exhibit has often coincided with the time of year that these Bees Swarm  . The photo album and movie below were taken during a few very active days where a portion of these bees made several attempts to swarm to another location.

We were impressed on how protective the Bureau of Water staff is of this colony.   They recognize the benefits these insects bring to the park around them:

The Bees of Highland Park's Water Works

• Honeybees account for 80% of all insect pollination
• USDA estimates that as much 25% of our diet is derived from plants pollinated by Honey Bees
• Bee pollination yearly creates $15 billion in added crop value
• Honeybees are comparatively docile…unlike more aggressive insects such as Yellow Jacket Hornets, these bee sting only when provoked.
• Protection of Existing Honey Bee Colonies is very important, especially because of the ongoing nation-wide die-back of bees referred to as “Colony Collapse Disorder“

Not everyone we meet during festival time understands why this hive of honey bees is special. One of the scariest moments during our time at the gatehouse came when a County Exterminator arrived because of a phoned-in complaint that bees were out of control.  But we were able to convince the Exterminator that these bees were not a threat to the public.  We have since created a sign to inform park visitors that the bees  are “Happy & Healthy”.
If you encounter the Water Work Bees on a stroll through the park, take time to admire them.  And join us in asking friends and family to be respectful of our colony in the park as well.

References:

Wikipedia Article on Honeybees

Honeybee Facts from Back Yard Beekeepers Association

USDA Questions  and Answers: Colony Collapse Disorder

No. 1. Descriptive Catalogue of Fruits- Twenty-Eighth Edition.

A published catalog is newly available on-line…but I wouldn’t try ordering anything from it.  Still, this is a special event around these parts as this book is the first digitized version of a complete bound set of Ellwanger & Barry’s catalogs that I’ve found in any online archive. Not surprisingly,  it is made available by the  Monroe County Library System as part of  a recent update to it’s dowloadable eBooks.  The physical bound book is kept at the Rochester Public Library and does not circulate.

The volume is actually a set of separate catalogs that were issued during the year 1888:

• No. 1. Descriptive Catalogue of Fruits- Twenty-Eighth Edition.
• No .2 Descriptive Catalogue of Ornamental Trees, Shrubs, Hardy Perennial Plants, Etc. : Twenty-Seventh Edition.
• No. 3. Autumn, 1887. Spring, 1888 Descriptive Priced Catalogue – Strawberries,
• No. 5. A Descriptive Catalogue of Select Roses -11th Edition.
  (not included here is E&B’s Number 4 catalog which was intended to for the wholesale market)

Magnolia Soulangeana

In later years, Ellwanger & Barry would publish a soft cover one volume catalog that resembles today seed & nursery catalogs, but in 1888, the catalogs were published as large pamplets directed towards different markets…for example Fruit Growers as opposed to “Landscape Gardeners” (See Preface Below from Catalog #2, “Ornamentals”).    If the Fruits catalog seems lightly illustrated compared to the Ornamentals, one should note that Ellwanger & Barry salesmen during this era would also have been using  specially bound plate books with many colorful Chromoliths to illustrate virtually every variety of fruit available.  Samples of these plates can be found at the University of Rochester online site…(and we will have much more on the subject of  colored plates for Nurseryman on this site at some point in the near future as well. )  Over 90 varieties of Apples and 65 of Pears are listed in the Catalog.  Other catalogs from this decade show that Ellwanger & Barry actually stocked several hundred other and rarer varieties of both fruits.  It  will give you a sense of how things have changed in the Fruit Nursery business when you contrast these numbers with what is currently available from one of the largest local fruit nurseries (for example – only 11 different varieties of Pears are sold.)

I hope you enjoy examining this historical catalog – it comes from a time that much was changing in the section of the city now known as the Highland Park Neighborhood.  Most of what would become the Neighborhood was still Nursery Grounds   An invitation to visit those grounds  is given in the excerpt below.  While one can no longer “inspect” Mount Hope Nurseries’s Collections, Botanical & Pomological Gardens, and Arboretum directly, Ellwanger & Barry in 1888 were busy preserving their legacy in such manner that one can still marvel at the varieties of trees and shrubs that they developed and sold….for this was the year that their gift of Highland Park was accepted was finally accepted by the City of Rochester.

From Lilac' Section of Catalog #2

PREFACE TO 27th EDITION.

We take pleasure in presenting to our friends and patrons the 27th edition of this catalogue.

Many of the descriptions have been rewritten, all the lists revised and several new illustrations introduced. W e believe the book will serve, not only as a priced catalogue, but also as a useful hand-book, containing concise descriptions of nearly all the hardy Ornamental Trees and Shrubs most worthy of cultivation in this and similar climates.

We cordially invite all who are interested in ornamental planting to inspect our collection; a new arboretum having been planted recently, which contains young specimens of nearly all the species and varieties we offer.
Duplicate collections will be furnished for college grounds, parks, etc., on the most favorable terms. To students and lovers of nature nothing can be more interesting than to study the nomenclature and note the peculiarities of growth, habit, foliage, flowers and fruit of all the finest trees and shrubs that will thrive in our climate.
Our general stock of ornamental trees, shrubs and plants has never been so extensive and complete in every department as it is at this time. Everything has been well and carefully grown.
Several promising novelties are now offered for the first time.

Young's Weeping Birch

Gentlemen making extensive improvements, or adding to their collections, Landscape Gardeners, Superintendents of Public Parks, Gardens, Cemeteries, etc., etc., will find it to their advantage to examine our stock.
Nurserymen and Dealers will be supplied on liberal terms. A wholesale catalogue (No. 4) is published semi-annually.
A Rose Catalogue is now published separately and is known, in our series, as No. 5, the great extension of our Rose culture having compelled us to adopt this course.
Attention is requested to ” Brief Suggestions to Planters ” on the next page.

ELLWANGER & BARRY

Golden Leaf Syringa from 1888 Ellwanger & Barry Catalogue

From  Ellwanger & Barry’s Mount Hope Nurseries  No .2 Descriptive Catalogue Of Ornamental Trees, Shrubs, Hardy Perennial Plants, Etc. : Twenty-Seventh Edition.

Gladiolus—The Pronunciation.

Gladiolus from Vick's Flower & Gardening Guide 1876

A correspondent writes :—”Vick accents the first syllable ; Webster, the second; and those not favored with the perusal of either, the third. Among those who wish to be governed by authority, the question arises: ‘Under which king?’ We were inclined to follow Webster, but examination reveals the fact that he has not followed his own analogy. For he has glad^- iator and glad^- iole both from the same root as gladiolus. So that apart from the consideration of whether Vick is not the higher authority in such things, he certainly has followed what seems to be correct analogy”.  We surrender  to Rochester, while awaiting the decision of the Editor.

Gladi’- olus.” [The analogy is not with its root but with the class to which it belongs. Diminutives have  their penults short, in this respect differing from adjectives which have their penultimae long. The classical pronunciation therefore is gladi'-olus,  that is, " a little sword."—Ed. G. M.]

In the summer of 1977, when I was 16,  I was hired by the Youth Conservation Core to work at Highland Park.   About 15 other teens were also hired, most of them inner-city at-risk youth.   I, on the other hand, was a somewhat privileged Brighton kid.  Our supervisors were quite the taskmasters (it almost felt like we were in military camp the way they barked their orders to us). We were paid minimum wage, which I think was $2.25 at the time,  for working 6 hour shifts that began at 8:30 a.m.

The group is out on the trail during the HPNA November 2011 Tree Tour that brought back memories of the Summer of 1977 to Darlene. Click on image to see more tour pictures.

It was a particularly hot and humid summer, and we had two primary tasks:

Postcard from 1912: Winding Steps Highland Park, Rochester NY

The first was to clear the brush on the park border hillside facing Goodman St. This was because there had been a couple of recent rapes in local city parks, and they wanted to minimize the chance of someone being able to hide in the brush and attack someone. That job wasn’t too tough. Just a little bit of clipping, raking, and bagging.

The second task, however, was particularly grueling to perform. We were given a bunch of railroad ties of varying sizes, long stakes and hand saws (some 1 person saws, and some 2 person saws), and shovels, and told we would be building a trail up the hill toward the reservoir. I cannot convey to you how difficult it is to cut through a railroad tie with a handsaw, even when sharing the job with a person at the other end of a two person saw. We constantly grumbled and complained, and begged for power tools. We were dripping wet by the end of the day with very sore muscles, and could do nothing else but take a hot shower and crawl into bed and read or watch tv (maybe that was the point – to keep us out of trouble?). By the end of the summer, we did finally complete the trail, and were so glad not to have this job anymore.

Post Card from 1940s: A Walk in Highland Park

Though none of us would have admitted at the time, afterward, I bet all felt a sense a pride of what we had achieved, not only personally, but also in bettering the park for others. When I came back on November 26, 2011 for a Pinetum Tour and saw the trail I had worked on 34 years ago, a spark of that pride returned to me. Highland Park will always hold a special place in my heart.

Themes for the first seven tours in the 2011-2012 series:

• May 14, 2011: ”Pinetum in Spring”
• May 22, 2011: “Trees from the Era of Ellwanger & Barry and Other Favorites”
• June 18, 2011: “Expansion of the Park and Secret Spaces”
• July 16, 2011:  “Pinetum in Summer”
• September 17, 2011: “The Very End of Summer”  **
• October 15, 2011: “Autumn in Our Highlands”
• November 19,2011 “Pinetum in Fall”

Amy Priestley, a neighborhood resident and former board member of the Highland Park Neighborhood Association,  was the tour guide for six of the seven tours. Amy attended graduate school at Oregon State University’s College of Forest Science and her love of all that grows has extended to her business ventures.  ** Thomas Jones,  who is a long time friend of the Highland Park Neighborhood’s tours and exhibits and a member of  Rochester’s Highland Park Conservancy, conducted the September tour.

Below is a photo album dedicated from tours that took place during 2011…look for a special entry called “Journey to the Dove Tree”  on this site for an interesting tie-in to our “Nominated Trees” series. Click on any picture thumbnail to start a slideshow of this album.  Each slide will also contain a “permalink”  to a page of information with full size version of the photo.

Early 20th Century Postcard of Highland Park's Lamberton Conservatory

Rochester’s most beloved Glass House recently celebrated its 100th birthday.   To honor this distinguished resident of the neighborhood, the scrapbook decided to mark the occasion with a special gallery of photos taken during the birthday weekend. (scroll down for the gallery or click here.)  We start with an illustrated, introductory essay on the historical context of  Lamberton Conservatory.  For those seeking even more history of the structure,  a complete set of linked references can be found at the bottom of this page.

London's Crystal Palace built in the 1850s

Conservatories have been with us for a while, at the very least since the first “glass house” was erected  in the Oxford, England Botanic Garden in 1675.   The last half of the 19th century brought refinements in the manufacturing, including that of iron and steel, that allowed economical construction of reinforced glass panels for roofs and building sides.  The first results were spectacular structures such as  London’s Crystal Palace which was built to house the Great Exhibition of 1851.

Buffalo's Central Palm Dome - The Conservatory in South Park

Closer to home, very similar methods were used to construct  Buffalo’s tri-dome  masterpiece, the conservatory of South Park which was finished in 1900.  After 120 years, it remains one of the jewels of that’s city’s Olmstead designed park system.  With a Central Palm Dome 67 feet high, South Park’s Conservatory  is much larger than Rochester’s Lamberton, including the older building’s two additional end domes and long passages that connect South Park’s three main rooms.   It was also more expensive by several factors.   By the end of the 1970s, it was in crisis and so, by the early 80s, Erie County purchased the facility and restored portions in order to keep the conservatory from closure.

Conservatory: Vick Garden Guide 1877

Within the expansive garden journals, guides  and other related publications of the mid to late 1800s, conservatories were often mentioned.   From the late 1860s, Rochester’s James Vick published a series of “Garden and Floral” guides which eventually evolved into an annual catalog.  Around 1877,  Vick also published a hard bound volume from which the illustration at left is taken (click on it for a larger version).   At that time the author had these comments on the worth of a conservatory:

The Winter Garden proper, or Conservatory, is a delightful spot in which to spend an hour occasionally during the cold storms of winter, a little Eden of our own making, a tropical summer brought to our own doors…What a blessing a rich man would be to a neighborhood, if he were to build such a conservatory as we have described, and say to his neighbors and their children that it was constructed partly for their pleasure, and that, at certain times, say two or three days in a week, all were invited to call and enjoy its pleasures at their convenience.

Portrait of Lamberton Conservatory 2006

It is interesting to note this long-ago author’s view of a conservatory as something “a rich man” would share with his neighbors.  Such was the typical thinking prior to the explosion in the development of public parks in the United States – a movement that began in the 1850s.  Fortunately, with Buffalo’s system serving as an example, the public park system phenomenon swept through Rochester after 1888.  And by 1911, a public conservatory was dedicated in our Highland Botanical Park to honor Alexander B. Lamberton, the reigning president of Rochester’s park commission.

Upper Dome of Conservatory -2006

Lamberton’s own family donated $20,000 for the building construction.  The Lord & Burnham Company provided the plans and materials as they had for the public conservatories in Buffalo, San Francisco, and the United States Botanic Garden on the Capitol mall.  Over time Lamberton was expanded, and as must happen to all glass houses, rebuilt and restored.  That tradition is also old, for the gardeners of Oxford soon realized that neither glass house nor greenhouse with a slate roof gave the plants within enough light to thrive.  But a transparent roof is like most other roofs as it represents a problem that must revisited with new materials and methods again and again over time.  Unlike other roofs, however, undertaking to rebuild a transparent roof  is something that takes an institutional-level commitment. Fortunately, this is a  county that values the heritage of our park and its structures.

Open Dome: April 3, 2009 - Lamberton Re-opens

The latest reconstruction cost nearly $1 million to rebuild the original dome using modern glass and materials during 2008 -2009.  When the Monroe County Parks Department had completed this work, I took the picture at left (which, like all illustrations on this page,links to a much bigger version) moments after the ribbon cutting ceremony on re-opening day: April 3, 2009.  The dome was also restored to its original plan of one story – a site-seeing platform was removed ( see picture above for vestiges of the platform).

Lamberton on Holiday Night

And another attraction was added later that year as Monroe County Parks open the building for evening holiday hours and a tasteful light show within the conservatory rooms. During one of the first of these, I captured another slide show that is on an earlier scrapbook page – click at right to go there.

The Dome One Year Later (2010)

Almost  a year after the public was let back, I returned to capture the outside  of the dome and as the photo to the left show,  replanted foliage was well on its way to filling up all the space it was given in the main room of the conservatory.  (Click on the thumbnail to see a bigger picture.)  It is interesting to peer in the windows and compare the plantings with those displayed in the  photos in the gallery below.  Frequent visitors can attest to  just how robust  the Tropical Forest within Lamberton has been when it comes to re-growth over the last three years.

Highland Park’s Lamberton Conservatory celebrated its 100th birthday over the weekend of November 5-6, 2011.  That week was  unusually balmy for mid Autumn in Rochester.  As in recent years,  the leaves lingered on the trees later than most of us have come to expect.   All of this contributed to a very colorful exterior, even when under glass.   Using multiple exposures and the digital technique known as HDR, I worked to capture the colors inside and out for the following album. I also made extensive use of a fish-eye lens  in order to portray the sense of space.  Please enjoy my tribute to one of the favorite buildings in the park and the neighborhood.  Happy 100th Birthday Lamberton, you are looking good!

Suggested References:

Monroe County Parks - Highland Park and Lamberton Conservatory

Downloadable Map of Lamberton Conservatory from Monroe County Parks

Parks: Protecting Highland’s Rainforest: 2007 Article at City Newspaper

Lamberton Conservatory at RocWiki.org

The Botanical Gardens at South Park, Buffalo.

History of the Conservatory by Hardwood Conservatories UK

Records of the Lord & Burnham Company

Vick’s Flower and Vegetable Garden as Reproduced at Archive.org

The Crystal Palace – Topic at Wikipedia

© michaelino.com and Virtual Scrapbook of The Highland Park Neighborhood,  2009-2012  Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to michaelino.com and Virtual Scrapbook of The Highland Park Neighborhood with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

For more examples of post cards  of the fountain, see this earlier post.

Portrait of the Fountain 2011

Along The Highland Reservoir 1910

Mt Hope Reservoir,1904

Reservoir at Highland Park, 1905

In September the Highland Park neighborhood suffered a great loss when Kristine Smith passed away. She was a civil servant for more than 30 years, retiring from her last position as Branch Head at the Maplewood Library. For several years, she served as secretary for our Ellwanger-Barry Neighborhood Association (known today as the Highland Park Neighborhood Association).  More recently she started walking on our PAC TAC pizza walks and eventually became a fully trained PAC TACer.The cold of winter or rain of spring did not deter Kris and many times she was the only other walker with me and my wife Beth.  She was always very helpful and full of
spunk and energy. Her beautiful spirit will be be sorely missed by us all.

For the second year, the music of “The Highlanders” (a band made up primarily of neighbors)  filled the park even as the jugglers from “Airplay” entertained young and old on Linden Street.   When the band was on break,  demonstrations of Zumba dancing and other skills were on display.   And many among us enjoyed the art of conversation among neighbors and friends all afternoon…while other, younger residents created a large hopscotch area on Meigs St or just revisited their favorite playground apparatus.

Below are few panorama photos of a people-filled Ellwanger & Barry Park on the festive day.   Each of these pictures links to a much larger version. Let these serve as one remembrance of how our community of neighbors  spends one Sunday in September every year…