Donald M. Kendall Sculpture Gardens

Rutgers Gardens sponsored its final trip for its volunteers today. Our destination was the renowned sculpture gardens at Pepsico World Headquarters in Purchase, New York. The gardens are approximately 168 acres and contain 45 works by major twentieth century artists.

Truthfully, I hadn’t been looking forward to this trip. I am a complete barbarian when it comes to art. Painting, sculpture, even poetry does nothing for me. Hence my non-participation in the Garden Bloggers’ Muse Day. The last thing I wanted to do was to spend an afternoon traipsing around staring at a bunch of sculptures that look nothing like what they represent. If you must inflict art on me, at least do me the favor of having it look like something.

After all of my dread, what caught and held my attention at the gardens were the trees.


Acres and acres of trees.



There were old favorites like willows.


And my new favorite, beeches.


There were gardens too


This is a family friendly blog so I am not showing a close-up of the little statue. He is “anatomically correct”.




I’m including this photo of the Autumn Garden especially for the volunteer who called me a “Camera Nazi” when I asked her to step out of the shot.

This is the entrance to the Stream Garden which is surrounded by a deer fence.


Doesn’t it look like a doorway to a Secret Garden?

But, oh, the trees.





There was also a small lake.


It has the biggest koi I have ever seen. One of the volunteers threw some bread in the water to attract them so she could photograph them.


When she did that, Mr. and Mrs. Mallard swam over to join the feast. Look at the size of those fish! Some of them are larger than the ducks.

I really should include a picture of some sculpture, shouldn’t I?


This was our favorite one.

More pictures of my tour of the Donald M. Kendall Sculpture Gardens can be seen on Flickr.