Swiss Society of New York

The Swiss Society of New York invites you to spend an afternoon with old and new friends and enjoy a private tour of one of the most beautiful treasures of the tri-state area.

For more information please see: SSNY Fall Trip
To RSVP by September 26, 2005 download: SSNY Fall Trip RSVP

Please contact us via email at info@SwissSocietyNY.com or call us at 212-755-1790.

More About the Gardens:

The Duke Farms and Gardens in Hillsborough, New Jersey is renowned for its extensive greenhouses. The 2,700 acre estate was built by James Buchanan Duke in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Duke, the founder of the American Tobacco Company, lavished over $10 million in landscape his central New Jersey estate. Over two million shrubs and specimen trees were planted. Man-made hills were created and nine small interconnected lakes were dug.

Currently only the display greenhouses at Duke Gardens are open to the public. Doris Duke, James Duke's only child, began a restoration and expansion of the greenhouses in 1958.

Inspired by Longwood Gardens, a DuPont estate in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, Miss Duke transformed the down-at-their-heels glass houses into a series of 11 display gardens.

Duke Gardens opened the restored greenhouses to the public in 1964. The greenhouses are only open for guided one-hour tours. Duke Gardens is open during the cooler months from October 1 through May 31.

Visitors first enter a domed display house planted to resemble an overgrown, lush Italianate garden with classical statuary. The tour then proceeds to a greenhouse representing the gardens of the southern states with magnolias, camellias and boxwood.

The next house is planted with orchids, ferns and bromeliads.

Beyond the fern and orchid house is a greenhouse with displays that recall the gardens of Versailles. Beds of flowers are planted in geometric patterns. Latticework softens the light. Vines spiral around green painted columns.

The formality of the French garden are contrasted by the next houses which feature an English herb garden in the form of a low knot in various shades of green, a garden with hedges and topiary in the form of animals and a long room abloom with floral borders.

A desert house is crowded with many varieties of cacti and succulents on either side of the dirt path.

The next two rooms are based on the gardens of Japan and China. The first room is based on Chinese gardens with a arched stone bridge over a pond stocked with koi and a viewing pavilion with a tile roof . A moon gate at the far end of the Chinese Garden leads to a Japanese garden.

An exquisite Indo-Persian garden is next. A water course is set between brick paving flanked by trimmed trees with carved marble screens at the far end.

A tropical house dense with plants, tree and vines leads back to the first house with its Italian garden.

See Also:
Duke Farms & Gardens Website
Recent NY TIMES Review
The Sarah P. Duke Gardens