Spotlight on the Garden: Russel Wright's Manitoga

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In 1942, Russel and Mary Wright purchased seventy-nine acres on the east side of the Hudson River near the hamlet of Garrison, New York.

Wright approached the forest as a sculptor, slowly revealing its character and bringing out its most subtle and beautiful features. Present threats to the property (now run by Manitoga/The Russel Wright Design Center) come from the hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae) that infest the hemlocks and from the deer that are browsing upon stressed hemlocks' few seedlings. Issues of increased storm water flow and vegetation management also threaten Wright's careful landscape design. In addition to basic preservation planning, interim protection and stabilization efforts must be undertaken to treat the hemlocks, manage the deer population and control the on-site erosion. Ultimately, donations and/or grants are needed to support these - and other - essential historic landscape restoration activities.

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