Introduction

Historic Garden Tools of Montgomery Place showcases the agricultural, garden, and arborist hand tools and a few small decorative garden ornaments used on the Montgomery Place estate from the late 1800’s to mid-1900’s. Bard staff and volunteers found these tools stored in the Montgomery Place greenhouse attic and pole barn. There are additional tools that are currently stored in the Coach House and Thompson Barn. These tools are an important piece of the estate’s history as an agricultural and landscape model in the Hudson Valley. They illustrate the three distinct cultural stages that the estate experienced: working farm (agricultural tools), ornamental showpiece (garden and arborist tools) and recreational retreat (garden tools and decorative garden ornament). They remind us of the estate’s workforce and the toil that they experienced to maintain the agricultural fields, flower beds, and vegetable gardens.

All photographs by Livia Sponberg-Paraday '20