Bard College Landscape and Arboretum Program

The Bard College campus encompasses 930-acres in the Hudson River Valley, approximately twenty miles north of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the hamlet of Annandale. The Landscape and Arboretum Program is charged with promoting tree conservation and preservation on the Bard Campus, and offers horticultural education, outreach and research. Noncredit, adult education courses – offered at the College through the New York Botanical Garden – are open to the public and to members of the Bard community. Other events sponsored by the Arboretum Program include an annual Arbor Day tree celebration, campus garden tours, and lectures. The campus landscape contains many 200-year-old trees including several of New York’s champion tree species, as listed on the New York Big Tree Registry. The historic campus is comprised of Blithewood and Montgomery Place Historic estates, contemporary plantings and gardens, meadows, forests, wetlands, tidal estuary, and a Hudson River tributary, namely the Saw kill Creek. It is part of the 32-mile Hudson River National Historic Landmark District. The Arboretum grounds are open daily, year-round sunrise to sunset.