Garden Holiday
August 25 – 30, 2019
Celebrating Garden Holiday
Delight in hands-on workshops and demonstrations with the area’s finest horticultural experts. Mohonk’s show gardens highlight a diverse array of flora both native and exotic. Be sure to join us at our annual Victorian Garden Party!
Join us for a stroll through the award-winning gardens as we celebrate this year’s theme:
“A Native American Garden”, featuring plant material native to the New World – North America, Central America, and South America.
Availability is limited. For reservations, please call .
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS: COMING SOON
Please check back for an updated schedule 3 months prior to the event.
Preview last year’s schedule:
SUNDAY
Welcome and Garden Tour
Meet our Garden Holiday team, pick up your welcome packet and annual themed pin, and have a cup of tea. Join Mohonk’s Garden Supervisor Andrew Sinno for a guided stroll into the gardens to begin your stay.
Weedless Gardening
Join Lee Reich to learn a novel way of caring for soil, one that results in fewer weeds. By nurturing the ground from the top down, avoiding soil compaction, maintaining a soil cover, and pinpointing watering emulates rather than fighting Mother Nature, will result in healthier plants and minimize weed problems. Lee will show how to apply this 4-part system to establish new plantings as well as to maintain existing plantings. These principles and practices are rooted in the latest agricultural research.
MONDAY
The Green Thumb Debunked
Join Mohonk’s Garden Supervisor, Andrew Sinno as he demystifies general plant care and offers tips and tricks to improve your gardening skills. This will include both indoor and outdoor plants and a bit of the in-between.
Guerrilla Gardening
Join the ranks and become a rebel gardener! Make your own seed bombs, and learn the best techniques for throwing and growing with Carmen Doyon from the Mohonk Greenhouse.
Space is limited to 50 guests. Signup is required to guarantee a spot.
Flower Arrangements Inspired by Nature
The art of floral arranging considers the color, shape, and texture of different plant parts to successfully blend them into a cohesive design. Join Theresa Colucci for a nature themed floral design demonstration as she incorporates a variety of indigenous materials from the Hudson Valley and New York State.
TUESDAY
A Walk Through the History of Flower Design
Ever since flowers have been cultivated, their beauty has been used in celebrations, rituals, and decorative arts. Join Carol Cramer and Jacque Schwab of Mohonk’s floral team as they guide you through the prominent eras of floral design, from its origin in ancient times, through the opulence of the Victorian years, to today’s eclectic trends.
Native to America Plant Lore: Traditional Legends, Uses, and Truths About the Plants Around Us
Native North and South American plants have a rich and fascinating history – not only ecologically, but mythologically as well! Mohonk’s Greenhouse Manager Catherine Martini will touch on a bit of both in this lecture that is equal parts story time and education.
Victorian Garden Party
Members of the Smiley family and Garden Holiday leaders will host afternoon tea in our award-winning show garden for our overnight guests. Listen to the melodic sounds of flute and harp, and please be sure to wear your favorite garden party hat!
The Victorian Garden Party is open to overnight resort guests only.
Live Music with Grammy Award-Winning Musician Joanne Shenandoah
Joanne Shenandoah, Ph.D., is one of “America’s most celebrated and critically acclaimed Native American musicians of her time”, Associated Press. She is a Grammy Award winner with 3 nominations, over 40 music awards (including 14 Native American Music awards – Hall of Fame Inductee) with music ranging from solo to full symphony and 22 recordings. Joanne Shenandoah transports your spirit with her powerful, insightful original music and traditional Iroquois-inspired songs.
WEDNESDAY
Native Fruits with Lee Reich
Most people, when they decide to grow fruits, plant apples, peaches, pears, cherries, or other familiar market fruits that reflect our traditionally European heritage. Why not consider fruits native to America? Native fruit plants look naturally at home in our landscapes and often are better adapted to withstand our pest and climate challenges. We’ll explore the beauty, flavor, and cultivation of American persimmon, pawpaw, beach plum, lingonberry, and a host of other native delectables, as well as one native fruit we have been eating for the last hundred years, the blueberry.
Native Plants that Nurture Butterflies and Caterpillars in Your Garden
Join horticulturalist Chad Nelson on an illustrated presentation followed by a hands-on session assembling seed packets to plant in your own garden!
Garden Inspired Cocktail Demonstration and Tasting
Join a member of our Beverage staff and learn how to shake things up as they show you a step by step demonstration and tasting on how to create garden inspired cocktails.
*Note: Pre-registration is required, space is limited. $30 per person fee for admittance to the tasting. Participants must be age 21 or over to attend.
Musical Performance by Rhett Miller: “The American Songbook: An exploration of the greatest songs of the last half-century”
Critically acclaimed singer-songwriter and frontman of The Old 97’s, Rhett Miller takes a stroll through the greatest songs of the modern era. From Ella Fitzgerald to Bob Dylan, The Kingston Trio to Carole King, Paul Simon to Tom Petty. This set of songs will celebrate the marriage of melody and lyric that took root in Tin Pan Alley, blossomed in the Brill Building, and serves as the soundtrack to our lives.
THURSDAY
Garden Tour
Take a morning stroll with Andrew Sinno for an official tour around this season’s show garden, “A Native American Garden”, featuring plant material native to the New World – North America, Central America, and South America.
Boot Camp for your Senses with Tovah Martin
Learn to garden with eyes wide open, ears to the ground, and hands outstretched. Created to coincide with Tovah’s new book, The Garden in Every Sense and Season, this lecture explores the garden on all levels by attuning your nose to the scents and training your ears to listen. Tailored to the current season to make each presentation dynamic, Tovah will lead your group through an odyssey of exploration to awaken the senses and arouse your abilities of perception on all levels. Sharing advice and ideas to deeply enhance the gardening experience while also incorporating a “Smellathon” to help get nostrils in gear, this lecture is beautiful and fun as well as highly practical.
Garden Holiday Reception
Join us for wine and light fare as we wrap up this year’s Garden Holiday Program.
An Evening of Music with Tom Stewart and Maureen Kelley Stewart
Featuring music from a time gone-by, the Stewarts are a favorite of Mountain House guests.
FRIDAY
Behind the scenes with Mohonk’s Rustic Carpenters
We are going on a little trip to see the latest projects undertaken by this very talented crew. Prepare to be amazed!
Availability is limited. For reservations, please call .
MEET OUR PROGRAM LEADERS
Andrew Sinno
Andrew Sinno, Mohonk’s Head Gardener, has worked in our gardens for over two years. He has a Bachelors in Plant Science from SUNY Cobleskill and has been in the industry his entire working life. He specializes in ornamental horticulture.
Catherine Martini
Catherine Martini is the Greenhouse Manager at Mohonk. She studied horticulture at Finger Lakes Community College in Central New York. She has worked in garden centers, farms, and most recently for Cornell Cooperative Extension in Warren and Saratoga Counties with Master Gardeners. She began her horticulture career here at Mohonk in the gardens and is very happy to be back. Her previous garden holiday talks have been on the history, care, and uses of lavender, as well as biological controls in the greenhouse and gardens. She’s excited to combine her second love (fairytales and folklore) with her first (horticulture) for this year’s garden holiday talk.
Carol Cramer
Carol Cramer has been a Florist at Mohonk for 10 years and has been working with flowers for over 25 years. She is also an artist, showing regionally.
Jacqueline Schwab
Jacqueline Schwab joined Mohonk in 2017. Prior to coming to Mohonk she worked at an organic farm. (Windfall Farms in Montgomery NY), and showed her paintings locally.
Carmen Doyon
With a master’s degree in fine arts, Carmen has been a creative force at Mohonk for over four years. As head greenhouse grower, Carmen has used the Mohonk Children’s garden to cultivate her ideas and let them grow wild. The 2017 dinosaur-themed garden was a popular focal point enjoyed by Mohonk guests and employees alike. She assures this year’s Children’s Garden will attract anyone with a sweet tooth.
Tovah Martin
Tovah Martin is the author of many gardening books – most recently The Indestructible Houseplant, which follows the success of The Unexpected Houseplant, and The New Terrarium as well as the popular Tasha Tudor’s Garden. Her freelance articles have appeared in publications including Country Gardens, Garden Design, Traditional Home, Martha Stewart Living, O the Oprah Magazine, Old House Interiors, Horticulture Magazine, Yankee, Connecticut Cottages & Gardens as well as The Daily Telegraph. In addition to being the 2012 Writer in Residence for the new Victoria magazine, she is an accredited Organic Land Care Professional through NOFA, an honorary member of the Garden Club of America and the recipient of their medal for outstanding literary achievement.
Theresa Colucci
Theresa Colucci is a member of the American Institute of Floral Design, Professional Floral Communicators International, owns two retail florist shops in the Hudson Valley and has been in business since 1987. In the past, Theresa was the Floral Design instructor for the State University of NY at Cobleskill, and an instructor at the NY Botanical Gardens. Theresa has both chaired and been a featured designer at the Philadelphia Flower Show for several years and has been fortunate to design at the White House several times. Her passion for flowers and the floral industry keeps her busy seeking out trends, educating students and other florists, while continually educating herself from designers worldwide.
Lee Reich, Ph.D.
Lee Reich is an avid “farmdener” (more than a gardener, less than a farmer) with graduate degrees in soil science and horticulture. After working in plant and soil research with the USDA and Cornell University, he shifted gears and turned to writing, lecturing, and consulting. He writes regularly for a number of gardening magazines and his syndicated gardening column for Associated Press appears biweekly from coast to coast. His “farmden” has been featured in such publications as The New York Times and Martha Stewart Living, has won awards from National Gardening and Organic Gardening magazines, and has been included in “Open Days” tours of the Garden Conservancy.
Chad Nelson
Chad Nelson is a registered landscape architect and passionate gardener who works as a tour manager for Collette, America’s longest-running family owned travel business, celebrating 100 years in business this year. Chad specializes in tours of the Eastern United States and the United Kingdom, and has also hosted garden tours to Italy, Japan, Brazil, Cuba, and New Zealand. Despite his frequent travels Chad tends an exuberant garden in Newark, Delaware which is very popular with butterflies and other local wildlife.
Joanne Shenandoah, Ph.D.
Joanne Shenandoah, Ph.D. is one of Native America’s most celebrated musicians with 23 albums to her credit. She has been awarded a Grammy and over 40 other music awards. Cited as an ambassador of peace and the voice of an angel, she has performed at venues around the world including the White House, before his Holiness the Dalai Lama, The Vatican, The White House, Woodstock, Madison Square Garden and more. Ms. Shenandoah is a member of the Wolf Clan, Oneida Nation, Haudenosaunee.
When you visit during Garden Holiday, your overnight package includes:
- Three meals daily featuring fresh, locally sourced cuisine from our farm-to-table partners
- Access to more than 85 miles of the Hudson Valley’s best hiking trails
- Boating, fishing, and swimming on Lake Mohonk
- Daily Guided “House History” Tours of our National Historic Landmark resort
- Guided Nature Hikes with stunning views of the Catskill Mountains
- Yoga, Meditation, and Fitness Classes
- Indoor Heated Pool with underwater music
- Afternoon tea and cookies in our historic Lake Lounge
- Complimentary greens fees on our Scottish-inspired golf course
- Nightly Evening Entertainment
- Special Events and more! See schedule of activities >
A la carte experiences available to overnight guests:
- A full menu of nature-inspired treatments at our award-winning spa
- The Carriage Lounge, featuring a full bar and handcrafted cocktails as well as hyperlocal draft beer and hard cider
- An award-winning wine list in our Main Dining Room
- Horseback riding, carriage rides, and pony rides