Nelsonville Village Green Gets a Clean-up

April 14, 2022

Philipstown Garden Club and Village of Nelsonville Join Forces in Homage to Fredrick Law Olmsted

To mark the 200th birthday of Frederick Law Olmsted, Philipstown Garden Club (PGC) did not have to go far to find an example of Olmsted’s revolutionary theories about the value of public parks and open space for the health of all communities. The Philipstown community has an outstanding example of just such a park in its midst. The Nelsonville Village Green is a small pocket park featuring several intimate ‘rooms’ with benches that invite visitors to sit and enjoy the birdsong. It includes a war memorial honoring the community’s fallen residents and a commemoration of Elisha Nelson, Nelsonville’s namesake.

Bronze plaques in the kiosk thank all the parties involved in creating this unique space including the Open Space Institute, the Lila Acheson and DeWitt Wallace Fund for the Hudson Highlands, local organizations that helped make the park a reality, and Mary C. Rice, R.L.A., who created the garden design. This truly is a park where nature meets the Philipstown community.

Last fall, PGC’s Garden History & Design chair reached out to Village of Nelsonville Trustees to collaborate on a project to give the park a fresh face lift. A crew of eleven PGC members and family came armed with garden tools. Within three hours, ten bags of garden debris were removed, hedges were trimmed, fall-blooming sedum and spring bulbs were planted, and the park was given a thorough fall-cleaning to ready it for spring.

The Garden Club of America (GCA) is a proud founding partner of the Olmsted 200 bicentennial campaign. The GCA's contribution to the celebration is the unprecedented opportunity for all 199 GCA clubs to connect the needs of their communities with Olmsted’s revolutionary vision for parks and public landscapes by participating in the GCA’s initiative, PARKS: Where Nature Meets Community. Each club project helps their local community public spaces while collectively celebrating Olmsted’s genius for public access to nature across the country.

See All News