Linwood Gardens

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Linwood Gardens

See website for reservations and look out for Open Garden Days! 2024 Tree Peony Festival dates: May 18-19, May 25-26, June 1-2 with pop-up weekday TBA!

A private, historic estate in NY's Genesee Valley, featuring gardens and a tree peony collection. 2026 Tree Peony Festival is May 16-17, 23-24, 30-31, with weekday pop-up TBA 1 week ahead. Reservations required, see website beginning in April. See you soon!

06/13/2026

✨ New book about Linwood Gardens just published! ✨

📖 Sixty-one years after Bill Gratwick wrote his classic “My This Must Have Been a Beautiful Place…When It Was Kept Up,” his great-granddaughter Holly Watson has compiled a new book formally documenting the family and property’s story, putting recent decades on paper for the first time.

🌳 “No Small Plans: a History of Linwood Gardens” traces the Gratwick family from 1800s Buffalo to the establishment of Linwood Gardens as a country place and the property’s development up to the present day. Drawing from 125 years of photos and stories, the book helps put Linwood Gardens in its regional and national context.

🪺 Find “No Small Plans” at the following locations this summer:

🔹Linwood Gardens’ events and Open Garden Days (6/19, 7/18, 7/29, 8/29, 9/5, 10/3). Book is $25, all proceeds go directly to support the gardens.

🔹York Common Grounds (FB isn’t letting us tag them—search for their profile!) just down the road. An open-house book-signing and opportunity to chat with Holly will be Sat. June 20, 10am-noon!

🔹Check back in the next few weeks for additional local bookstores and locations to pick up a copy.

🔹 At this time, shipping is not available.

💙 Thank you to all who have contributed to this project!

06/12/2026

💧 Pool day!

…But not the lounging, swimming-type day yet. First the historic pool needed some repairs.

🪏 Winter and water took its toll on the concrete and the walls needed some patching. Several of the nine Gratwick family members living on the property grabbed trowels to help—it’s a group effort to keep a 118-year-old pool swimmable.

⛲️ The c. 1908 swimming pool is an original “garden room” of Linwood Gardens. Few families had in-ground pools in the days before chlorine and effective filtration systems, so this pool is thought to be one of the oldest known pools of its kind in the state, if not the country.

🧽 We still have to pump all the water out each spring and then refill the pool, just like the old days! We do use minimal chlorine now to help keep the water pleasant and clear.

💎 Although the swimming pool is for private use only, visitors to Open Garden Days can view it in context with the other gardens as part of the designed landscape.

Summer Open Garden Days:
🔹Fri. June 19 (guided tour available)
🔹Sat. July 18
🔹Wed. July 29
🔹Sat. August 29
🔹Sat. September 5
🔹Sat. October 3

✅ Reservations required at linwoodgardens.org/open-garden-days. Thanks!

06/07/2026

First Open Garden Day is Friday, June 19 🌳

✅ Reservations required at linwoodgardens.org/open-garden-days

✨ On this day only, a guided tour will be available, led by a family member! 10am, $25/each. Tours bring the landscape to life with stories about the family, house, and gardens.

✴️ You can also just wander. Open Garden Days are for enjoying the gardens in creative ways—have a photoshoot, make art, explore, read, or birdwatch. Hours are 10am-2pm each day, $20 suggested donation per adult (kids are free!).

🧺 Feel free to bring your own food (no alcohol, please), carry in, carry out. There will not be food to purchase on site. Free tap water will be available to refill water bottles.

📷 select curiosities: 1) the famous weeping beech tree; 3) The flowers of the Dutchman’s pipe vine.

06/03/2026

🌺 Summer Open Garden Days announced!

🔹Fri. June 19
🔹Sat. July 18
🔹Wed. July 29
🔹Sat. August 29
🔹Sat. September 5
🔹Sat. October 3

✅ Reservations required at linwoodgardens.org/open-garden-days

✴️ These Open Garden Days are for enjoying the gardens in creative ways - have a photoshoot, make art, explore, read, or birdwatch. Hours are 10am-2pm each day, $20 suggested donation per adult (kids are free!).

🧺 Feel free to bring your own food (no alcohol, please), carry in, carry out. There will not be food to purchase on site. Free tap water will be available to refill water bottles.

🏡 Linwood Gardens is a private residence and a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization operates public events. The property is open to the public only during scheduled events and via pre-arranged group tours. We cannot accommodate individual visit requests outside of these events, thank you for understanding.

❓Questions? Check our website or shoot us a message here!

06/02/2026

🧁 Major thank you to Sweet Arts Bakery for being at the Tree Peony Festival each day with hot coffee, scones, cinnamon rolls (not pictured because we ate them too fast!), soup, and savories. Sitting on the terrace with a treat really makes the day better!

☕️ Find Ruth Ann and Brian in their shop on Main Street Geneseo with all kinds of hot and cold drinks, sweets, and more. They also do orders of cookies and cakes for special occasions.

06/01/2026

That’s a wrap on the 2026 Tree Peony Festival 🥲

☔️ ☀️ Through all kinds of weather (rain and 40s, sunny and 70s) you came out and were cheery, curious, generous, and joyful. Opening the gardens for our community is a true pleasure! We wouldn’t be here without you.

👀 Look out for summer/fall Open Garden Days to be announced soon.

😊 Thank you!

05/31/2026

💐 Last Tree Peony Festival day is Sunday May 31!

🐡 Currently, all spots are full. But if you’re still hoping to come, please check the reservation website at linwoodgardens.org/festival for any spots that open due to last-minute cancellations.

❌ Have a reservation and can’t make it? Please cancel your spots so others may sign up. For multi-people reservations, please cancel each spot individually. Contact us for assistance if you need it.

🌼 Thank you for your understanding and overwhelming support this season!

05/25/2026

✨ Weekday festival day is Wed. May 27! ✨

🎉 Can’t come to the Tree Peony Festival on a weekend? Need a mid-week reason to play hooky? This is your chance!

🏵️ This Wednesday, May 27, will be perfect for viewing glorious tree peonies as well as fountains, birds, winding paths, and the Genesee Valley view.

✅ Reservations required, check out linwoodgardens.org/festival for this day as well as the last weekend, May 30-31.

☕️ Sweet Arts Bakery will be here with coffee and pastries! For lunch options, head to BW's at Davis Countryside Meadows, the Wadsworth Grill, or our other valley neighbors.

😊 We can’t wait to see you!

05/21/2026

Weekend updates!

🌧️ Sat-Sun May 23-24 are forecast to be pretty wet. What this means for visitors:
🚗 Parking will be creative as our usual parking meadow will be unavailable. Please carpool if possible and be patient as our volunteers guide you to a spot.
🥾 Wear weather-appropriate clothes and layers, it often feels chillier up here.
🧁 Warm up with Sweet Arts Bakery coffee and treats by the fireplace in the summer house.
☔️ Enjoy the adventure!

💐 The tree peonies are glorious! Many have opened with recent hot weather. If you brave the sog this weekend or Wednesday May 27 (our one weekday festival day, which does look drier!) you’ll see lots of Japanese and early hybrids.

✅ Reservations required at linwoodgardens.org/festival.

Remaining dates of the Tree Peony Festival:
🔹May 23
🔹May 24
🔹May 27
🔹May 30
🔹May 31

🩵 Thanks for your understanding and support through all weather!

05/19/2026

🦋 Big news from the gardens: the first monarch butterfly of the year arrived this week!

🪽These migrants from deep Appalachia or the Atlantic coast, perhaps PA or NC, are descendants of hibernators in Mexico. In turn, their descendants will make the entire return journey to Mexico this fall, 2,500-plus miles, in one long migration.

🐛While tree peonies might feed some of the adult butterflies this week, their caterpillars will depend entirely on native milkweeds, chomping their way to adulthood.

🌎 As part of Linwood Gardens’ conservation mission, we annually I.D. tag and release monarch butterflies, helping with MonarchWatch.org’s efforts to map and monitor these creatures’ globally renowned migration patterns.

🌾 If you visit the gardens this spring, take note of the meadow habitat surrounding the formal gardens. Milkweed will be popping up here for monarchs, along with grasses and flowers that feed and protect all kinds of creatures. Listen for red-winged blackbirds and bobolinks!

✅ Reservations required for the Tree Peony Festival, May 23-24, 27, and 30-31. If spots are currently full, check back as there are sometimes cancellations.

🎥: We didn’t get a shot of the new arrival, so enjoy this slo-mo monarch from a couple summers ago. Tree peony image is from today in the gardens!

Address

1912 York Road W
Linwood, NY
14486

Website

http://www.linwoodgardens.org/

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