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Root Glen
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Contact Information
Terry Hawkridge

315-859-4075
315-859-4407 (fax)
Root Glen

The Root Glen is a 150-year-old wooded garden nestled between the North and South campuses of Hamilton College. The Glen, open sunrise to sunset, features two perennial display gardens, the Hemlock Enclosure and the Grant Garden. The Glen is also home to the most diverse collection of trees in the Hamilton Arboretum. Red shale paths crisscross the ravine sides, with benches overlooking the Glen's brook below. The Glen is a quiet area where reading a book, painting a landscape, or enjoying a blissful walk is an everyday possibility.

The Root Glen is dynamic, changing week to week and season to season. Carpets of spring perennials come and go along its wooded trails. A collections of world-class Tree Peonies, hybridized by A.P.Saunders on College Hill, are on display in the Grant Garden in late spring each year. The raised Alpine beds of the Hemlock Enclosure start a bloom sequence that persists all season long, right up to the fall frosts. Flowering trees and fall foliage delight the expert and novice alike. The Root Glen is a magical place.

As does any garden, the Glen changes from year to year. Old trees are lost to wind and ice; new trees mature to take their places. A patch of wildflowers disappears; another emerges. To those who frequent the Glen, each season brings both familiar and unexpected plants.

Garden tours and tours of the Hamilton Arboretum may be scheduled with advanced notice. Contact Terry Hawkridge at thawkrid@hamilton.edu or 315-859-4075.


Abschasica Primrose

The story of Abschasica Primrose and the Root Garden goes back to when four seed were given to the garden from a visitor who when to Russia. Of these 4 seed, one germinated and was planted in the garden. It thrived and often bloomed through the spring snows.

The Abschasica Primrose was accidentally removed by aggressive weeding from a student crew but a local gardener, who had cuttings from the original plant, donated plants back to the garden.
 
Garden Photos
Alpine Beds in May 2007
There are many different Alpine plants in bloom in May and early June. The Phlox subulata make a great display but these are but a few.
A.P.Saunders hybridized over a 100 varieties of Herbaceous Peonies.  Here are but two on display currently in the Main Garden of the Hemlock Enclosure.
Candelabra Primrose in the Primrose Basin.
Saunder's Tree Peonies now in Bloom.
"Black Panther" 1948