Most people think small when they think of rock gardens—miniature plants in confined spaces. Leonard J. Buck (1894-1974) was not one of those people. Buck, who made a fortune importing and exporting metal ores, created a thirty-three acre rock garden at his estate in Far Hills, New Jersey. Buck has been gone for forty years, but his garden lives on, now under the aegis of the Somerset County Parks Commission.
Buck began his personal horticultural adventure in the nineteen thirties, acquiring a north central New Jersey property known as “Moggy Hollow.” The Hollow was actually a stream valley, surrounded by rocky outcroppings, some of them substantial. Buck, who had an interest in gardens and served on the Board of Governors of the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, enlisted a Swiss landscape architect, Xenon Schreiber, to help transform the property into a woodland rock garden, showcasing unusual plants. Schreiber was a young man at the time. He went on to an illustrious career and years later, in the nineteen sixties, designed a similar woodland/garden at the Birmingham Botanical Garden in Alabama.
Buck was trained as an engineer and, because he was in the metal ore business, was no stranger to blasting. To achieve his garden vision, he blasted away certain areas of Moggy Hollow to reveal even more outcroppings. The blasting was so intense that at one point, Buck’s wife, Helen, joked that divorce would ensue if it did not stop. The marriage stayed together, but Buck named one of his more prominent rock outcroppings “Reno Rock” to commemorate Mrs. Buck’s threat to put all the blasting behind and run off to Reno, Nevada, America’s divorce capital.
Leonard Buck named many of the outcroppings in his garden and you can still see those names chiseled into rocks by the outcroppings. My daughter and I visited the Buck Garden on a rainy summer day. We had no human company, though we saw and heard lots of healthy frogs, who serenaded us with their twanging cries. The ground was a little soggy in spots, especially near the meandering stream, but there was much to see. Trails wind up, down and around the outcroppings. Plantings have been simplified since Buck’s time, but the rock gardens are still filled with interesting alpine perennials and shrubs. Elsewhere mature trees, flowering shrubs and shade-loving perennials fill garden spaces. Arts and Crafts-style birdhouses, benches and bridges also dot the property. I am sure these structures have been replaced, rebuilt or refurbished since Buck’s time, but Xenon Schreiber seems to have specialized in Arts and Crafts landscaping, so perhaps they are original in spirit, if not in fact.
Spring is peak time for the Buck garden, but there was still plenty to see in summer. In the flat “Kennel Field” area, pink and white-flowered forms of sweet-smelling pepperbush—Clethra alnifolia—were blooming. So was Joe Pye-weed—Eupatorium purpureum—which would have been a butterfly attraction, had it not been raining so hard.
The pink spires of dwarf astilbe bloomed in some of the rock gardens, as did various cranesbills and hostas. Dwarf or alpine forms of azaleas, pines and hemlocks sprouted from the rocky soil or anchored the alpine troughs of various shapes that were placed throughout the landscape. The small azaleas and rhododendrons echoed the larger species that dotted the hillsides above the stream and kennel field. I made a mental note to come back in the spring and see them.
The wet stream bank was home to several impressive rose mallows, kin to the hardy hibiscus blooming in backyard gardens right now. In several spots we also saw the scarlet spikes of red lobelia—Lobelia cardinalis—that popped up like exclamation points. In a few weeks goldenrod and Japanese anemone will hold forth in several garden areas.
Seeing a place like the Buck Garden on a dark day in pouring rain is a unique experience. Some features are softened, while others are made more mysterious. If you wear waterproof footwear and don’t mind getting wet, it is magical. Still, the combination of nooks and crannies, tall trees and enormous rocks, natural walls and moving water is impressive any time.
According to Buck’s obituary, the Moggy Hollow property was not the only garden he created. Allwood Plantation, the Buck’s winter home near Thomasville, Georgia, also contained a grand garden, which Buck reportedly transformed “from a cabbage farm into a showplace.” When he wasn’t blasting out rocks or obliterating cabbages to create dynamic landscapes, Buck also bred award winning harness horses and cocker spaniels. He was a man of many talents and his vision still echoes from one rock ledge to another at the Leonard J. Buck garden.
For more information on the Buck garden, visit the Somerset County Parks Commission website at http://www.somersetcountyparks.org/parksFacilities/buck/LJBuck.html.