More About the Garden

Garden Care

Although maintenance of the ponds is minimal, Cornell Botanic Gardens' staff does an annual or biennial weeding out of flowering rush, cattails, and other aggressively spreading native plants.

Garden History

Houston Pond is named in honor of Neill ’13 and Elizabeth Houston, nature-lovers and Cornell Botanic Gardens supporters. Grossman Pond was named for Joseph G. Grossman ’12, a long-time Cornell Botanic Gardens supporter who was also a friend of F.R. Newman. Grossman and Houston Ponds are both man-made, excavated in the early 80s to resemble oxbow lakes.