BOXWOOD PRUNING

Help revive the historic boxwood plantings at a special workshop led by renowned boxwood expert Lynn Batdorf.

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SATURDAY, October 20th, 10 am - 1 pm

(Rain date: Saturday, October 27th, 10 am - 1 pm)

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RSVP: info@montroseparkdc.org

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ABOUT THE BOXWOOD

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The Boxwood Gardens and Boxwood Walk are thought to be originally designed and planted around 1850 by garden designer John Henry Small for the Boyce family, who owned the estate where Montrose Park now stands.  Small arrived in Washington, D.C. from England in 1848 and one of his first commissions was to design a garden for the neighboring Linthicum estate, now Dumbarton Oaks.  After the property was acquired by the Federal Government in 1910, the boxwood gardens were patched with fill-in plantings according to plans developed by landscape architect George Burnap, from the Office of Public Buildings and Grounds.  The Pergola in the center was designed by Burnap and built in 1913.  In 1922 landscape architect Irving Payne, also from the OPBG, appears to have simplified the earlier plan.  Vestiges of the original plan are still evident, including the circular bed in the middle of the two defined gardens to the north and south of the Pergola, and arrangement of the walkways.

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The Boxwood Walk was also a feature of the Boyce estate, and once had parallel rows of boxwood at the end of a walk on axis with the door of the original house, which fronted onto R Street.

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Using age-determining calculations recent measurements have shown that the boxwood are approximately 150 to 160 years old.

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ABOUT LYNN BATDORF

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For 36 years, Lynn Batdorf was Curator of the National Boxwood Collection at the U.S. National Arboretum in Washington, D.C.  For the past 30 years he has served as the International Cultivar Registration Authority for Buxus.   He has authored three popular books and over 50 articles on a variety of boxwood topics, and is an Honorary Life Member of the American Boxwood Society and the European Boxwood & Topiary Society.

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