It was raining in the morning with a forecast of steady showers, but the sun began to shine shortly before the gardens tour at the Rochester Civic Garden Center. About a half dozen of us met inside the center to eat our brown bag lunches while listening to a our tour guide, Millie, deliver a short history of the gardens. She told us that the center used to be a private residence, and that at that time the front gardens would have been fairly barren except for some shrubs, while the back gardens were the showcases. As it is now a garden center, they thought it appropriate to spruce up the front. After finishing our lunches, we went outside, passing the beautiful French mural, "El Dorado."

The center is reconstructing the gardens within the constraints of appropriate archival references, and its budget. Funding for gardens isn't a high priority in the current economy, and the search for accurate, detailed photographs is time-consuming and sometimes not fruitful. For instance, they have not been able to find photographs of the Courtyard Garden, which bears remarkable resemblance to a design by Alling Stephen DeForest (the man responsible for the George Eastman House gardens), although there is no evidence supporting that. The hanging vines that once covered the castle have since been removed, since they pull the stone apart. Because the stone is being repaired, not much gardening has been done around the periphery of the castle.

The Sunken Garden IS a DeForest. Although still a beauty, it lacks the originally designed tinkling noises of the fountains, which had to be filled in for insurance liability concerns.

The beautiful, huge cooper beach that graces the once-sunny flower beds was not in the original design. And I learned something new: a sassafras tree is the only tree that has four distinct leaves.