From the Director's Desk: Giving Thanks!

As we approach a new year, we look for­ward to the many oppor­tu­ni­ties ahead. We also turn our thoughts back to the projects com­plet­ed this past year and give thanks to all of Lan­dis’ friends who have made them possible.

In the past year, The Iro­quois Com­mu­ni­ty Grant Pro­gram fund­ed sig­nage for the Ed Miller Native Plant Trail. These pho­to-met­al signs with QR codes have been designed to com­ple­ment this edu­ca­tion­al trail. Oth­er grants award­ed through­out the year includ­ed the Stew­arts Hol­i­day Match grant, which paid for our fam­i­ly-friend­ly nature edu­ca­tion pro­grams host­ed by George Steele. We also received fund­ing from the Schoharie Coun­ty Tourism events mar­ket­ing grant, allow­ing us to air mul­ti­ple TV com­mer­cials through the sum­mer about var­i­ous events at Lan­dis. A Com­mu­ni­ty Arts Grant was award­ed to help under­write the pop­u­lar Full Moon Music Series, enabling us to offer free admis­sion to chil­dren 12 and under.

Our biggest grant award came from the Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency in the form of a Zoo/​Botanical Garden/​Aquarium (ZBGA) Grant. This grant allows us to con­tin­ue our mis­sion: to edu­cate the pub­lic about trees and oth­er plants and their impor­tance in our environment.

New friends and old joined us this year to memo­ri­al­ize deceased loved ones. Ten new pic­nic tables were giv­en in mem­o­ry of Cut­ter, a canine friend. An oak tree was plant­ed near the Great Oak in mem­o­ry of Esper­ance res­i­dent Jere­my LaJeunesse.

Oth­er gifts include two new Adiron­dack chairs on our Meet­ing House deck from Jim Paley and Wendy Kass. In Novem­ber, long­time Lan­dis vol­un­teer and friend Art Cole­man donat­ed $15,000 to be used for spe­cif­ic projects that include the ongo­ing main­te­nance of the Native Plant Trail, an upgrade to our entire BG Base sys­tem (which records valu­able infor­ma­tion about our plant hold­ings), and the replace­ment of our declin­ing Lilac Collection.

Lan­dis also received gen­er­ous spon­sor sup­port for our 10^th Peren­ni­al For­est 5K Run/​Walk, as well as a Fam­i­ly Pic­nic Mem­ber­ship Dri­ve and our annu­al NYS Wine Tast­ing. Both of our plant sales exceed­ed expec­ta­tions, and the Full Moon Con­cert Series saw an even greater atten­dance than in past sea­sons. The Upper Catskill String Quar­tet gra­cious­ly gave a free per­for­mance in our Meet­ing House, and the Lan­dis Gar­den Club’s whim­si­cal­ly dec­o­rat­ed rain bar­rels were raf­fled off to help fund the club’s gar­den­ing activities. 

2016 saw sig­nif­i­cant prop­er­ty improve­ments: we were able to replace all of the Farm House win­dows with ener­gy effi­cient frames, and the Green­house is being refur­nished with a new frame and poly­car­bon­ate panels.

2016 also saw the instal­la­tion of sev­er­al large sculp­tures, cour­tesy of artists Edwin Falk and Sam E.

For all of this and more, we are grate­ful to the com­mu­ni­ty and, indeed, to all our friends for their con­tin­ued sup­port. Our sus­tain­abil­i­ty relies on the gen­eros­i­ty of those that con­tribute in many ways, includ­ing and espe­cial­ly the vol­un­teers who give their time to keep us ​“grow­ing.” We look for­ward to 2017 with the expec­ta­tion of an even bet­ter year!