The Sundial and Fountain Garde

<br> The gardens at the Homestead pay homage to John Jay’s love of nature and to the pleasure that the Jay family found on the grounds surrounding their home.<br> <br> This garden combines designs found in family gardens from the early 19th through the 2oth centuries. <br><br> The Bedford Garden Club and staff from the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation began developing this garden in 1969. The garden, completed in 1983, is a community project, maintained by the Bedford Garden Club. <br><br> <i>&#8220;Cousin Ann says she is much better lately which she attributes to the garden &#8211; you know her fondness for it &#8211; how carefully she watches and nurses every expanding bed and how much she appears herself to benefit as they increase in fragrance and beauty.&#8221;</i> <br> (in this excerpt from a letter written on April 6, 1808, by Susan Livingston Ridley, we learn that Susan’s cousin Ann Jay shared her father John’s enthusiasm for horticulture.)