Bard College
IN-20: Grounds Certification

Level II-accredited arboreta have met the following enhanced levels of arboretum standards:

1) Satisfy all criteria for Level I accreditation (arboretum plan, organizational group, collection, staff or volunteers, public dimension), 2) Larger arboretum collection with a minimum number of 100 species, varieties or cultivars of trees or woody plants. 3) Arboretum collections policy that describes the development and professional management of the plants in the arboretum collection, in accordance with standards developed in the public garden and museum fields with consideration given to the Saint Louis Declaration regarding invasive species. Such a policy and related practices includes a rationale for holding the particular collections of the arboretum, and collections inventory and record-keeping practices. 4) One or more arboretum employees who have job responsibilities that specifically include management or operation of the arboretum. 5) Enhanced educational and public programming beyond the base level required in Level I accreditation. Programs must be related to trees (e.g. tree identification, ecology, conservation, collections, or some other tree-focused aspect of the arboretum mission or master plan.

The Bard College campus encompasses 930-acres in the Hudson River Valley, approximately twenty miles north of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the hamlet of Annandale. The Landscape and Arboretum Program is charged with promoting tree conservation and preservation on the Bard Campus, and offers horticultural education, outreach and research. Noncredit, adult education courses – offered at the College through the New York Botanical Garden – are open to the public and to members of the Bard community. Other events sponsored by the Arboretum Program include an annual Arbor Day tree celebration, campus garden tours, and lectures. The campus landscape contains many 200-year-old trees including several of New York’s champion tree species, as listed on the New York Big Tree Registry. The historic campus is comprised of Blithewood and Montgomery Place Historic estates, contemporary plantings and gardens, meadows, forests, wetlands, tidal estuary, and a Hudson River tributary, namely the Saw kill Creek. It is part of the 32-mile Hudson River National Historic Landmark District. The Arboretum grounds are open daily, year-round sunrise to sunset.
The entire 930-acre Bard College campus was dedicated to the Landscape and Arboretum Program on Arbor Day, April 27, 2007.
http://www.bard.edu/arboretum/arboretum/