Stockbridge, MA Part I: Berkshire Botanical Garden
Austerlitz, NY - Events of Friday, July 19 to Sunday, July 21, 2013
The next leg of our journey was a bit of a longer drive. It was little over 4 hours to Woodland Hills Campground in Austerlitz, NY. Massachusetts is within spitting distance of the campground, and Stockbridge is a short distance into Massachusetts. Stockbridge was the location of several things we wanted to see.
We pulled into Woodland Hills Campground around 1:00 on Friday. Woodland Hills has around 160 to 180 sites, most of which are full hookups, and most of which have permanently-parked RVs on them. It looked like there were less than a dozen sites that were used for transient guests. All the permanent sites have RVs that are fairly new, and the sites are neatly kept. Management must have fairly strict rules for the permanents. Many of the them have also built nice decks and patios, and have planted attractive flowers around their sites.
The roads are gravel, and the pads on the transient sites are mostly grass with a little gravel. Most of the seasonal sites are pretty well shaded, but the transient sites are more open. Since the campground is built on a hill, some of the sites aren't very level.
Our site at Woodland Hills Campground
Some of the seasonal sites across the road
As far as we can tell, there are no sites with 50-amp electric. When we arrived on Friday, it was hot, and we were able to run one air conditioner on the 30-amp hookup with no problems. However, on Saturday, our surge protector/energy management system kept shutting down our power later in the afternoon because of low voltage. Even though it wasn't as hot as it was on Friday, there was more demand with the campground full than the wiring could handle. Fortunately, as we said, it wasn't as hot so we did without the air.
Speaking of our air conditioner, we were charged an extra $3 a night because we said we planned to use the AC since it was around 90ยบ the day we arrived. That brought the total nightly cost to $41.20. That wouldn't have been that bad if it were for 50-amp electric and if the electric had been reliable.
We had full hookups, but apparently the campground has a septic system because guests are asked not to use their on-board washing machines. The convenience of using our own washer/dryer is one of the main reasons we like full hookups.
The campground was fairly quiet without any highway noise and only a few trains - except for the weekend. When lots of people know each other the way they do at a campground that is full of seasonals, there is bound to be some noise. Not only that, but there are plenty of planned activities, which are announced on the campground PA system. There is also a PA announcement every night on the weekend at dusk (8:15 at the time of year when we were there) telling kids it is time to stop riding bikes, another at 8:45 saying the camp store was about to close, and one at 11:00 p.m. stating that it is the start of quiet time. Are you kidding? You are blasting on a loudspeaker that it is time to be quiet?
Unfortunately, the campground doesn't offer Wi-Fi because Verizon Broadband reception was very poor. We had a lot of trouble getting and staying online on Friday and Saturday. Fortunately, it got a little better by Sunday afternoon when most of the people had left the campground. Everyone with their smartphones, tablets and computers must have put a lot of strain on the local cell tower. It started to rain on Monday evening, and the Verizon reception got slower than sludge again and stayed that way the rest of the time we were there.
As we said, the main reason we came to the area was to see Stockbridge, MA just a few miles to the east of the campground. It was cloudy on Saturday, so we hung around the campground, did our weekly cleaning chores and relaxed.
The weather forecast was predicting a chance of rain for Monday and beyond, so we decided to do our main outdoor sightseeing on Sunday. It was a little hazy in the morning as we headed to the Berkshire Botanical Garden. Admission to the garden is $15 ($13 for AAA members).
Berkshire Botanical Garden visitor center
The Berkshire Botanical Garden was originally established as the Berkshire Garden Center in 1934 by the Lenox Garden Club. It was granted a non-profit charter in 1936.
The garden is located on both sides of State Route 102. We took a few minutes to admire some of the annual beds in the vicinity of the visitor center before heading across the road.
Paul checking out some of the annuals near the visitor center
Right across the road is a large bed of daylilies that were at the peak of bloom. The Berkshire Botanical Garden has one of the most extensive collections of daylilies we have ever seen. The beds line both sides of the path for a distance of a couple hundred feet.
Daylily borders
The collection includes over 200 cultivars, some of which go back to before 1976. There was a huge variety of colors and flower shapes. We both spent a lot of time photographing and admiring the daylilies.
Paul photographing daylilies
Just some of the wide variety of daylily colors and flower shapes
At the far end of the daylily beds was the rock garden that includes plants specially adapted to poor soils and low rainfall of many mountain habitats.
Rock garden
There is a nice hosta garden next to the rock garden. The hostas, which thrive in shade, were interplanted with other shade-loving woodland plants such as wildflowers and ferns.
Hosta garden
Margery next to the hosta garden
At the bottom of the hill is a pond that features many spring-flowering bulbs. Since it was long past the bloom time of the bulbs, the pond was rather unremarkable except for the pleasant sound of the trickle of the waterfall, a few brown-eyed Susans blooming, and a frog.
Trickling waterfall
Frog beside the pond
In the large lawn area in the garden is a cottage garden designed by Martha Stewart.
Martha Stewart Cottage Garden
Coming up the hill on the opposite side of the lawn from the daylily garden is a picturesque, rustic tool shed surrounded by a mixed perennial-herb garden,
Rustic tool shed
At the upper end of the lawn there are perennial gardens.
Perennial garden
Paul checking out the perennial garden
Another view of the perennial garden
Rustic bench in the shade
We headed back across the road to check out the rest of the garden in the vicinity of the visitor center. There is a vegetable garden with 60 raised beds. The vegetable garden demonstrated different methods of supporting plants and different mulching techniques.
Raised beds in the vegetable garden
There is also a greenhouse and potting shed. We liked the interesting variety of textures of the plants in the potting shed.
Interesting plant textures in the potting shed
We enjoyed our visit to the Berkshire Botanical Garden. It is a nice display of a variety of landscapes in a fairly compact space.
From the garden, we headed into the town of Stockbridge. We'll tell you about what we saw there in our next post.
We have never been in a campground that makes announcements. Sounds like a good reminder to the parents that the kids should now be at home.
Boy did you two plan your visit at the right time of year. Gorgeous blooms every where. I love those purple day lilies.
It must take a ton of volunteers from the Garden Club to keep that place is such wonderful condition.
Posted by: Marsha Weaver | July 23, 2013 at 07:51 PM