Brookside Museum Gardens
The Beverly & Harold Ricks Herb Garden at Brookside Museum is a partnership of 40 years standing between the Saratoga County History Center and the Thymly Herb Group who designed the organic garden to complement the circa 1800 house and to supplement the educational tours and events the museum offers. There are four sections: culinary, dye, fragrance, and medicinal.
Objectives:
- to showcase plants found in colonial and early American gardens
- to demonstrate the multiple uses of herbs during that period
- to demonstrate the intermingling of herbs and vegetables in early “kitchen gardens”
- to provide background about plants that arrived with the colonists, escaped from their gardens, and have become naturalized in our landscape and are by many are thought of as native and often considered “weeds.” Dandelion is one example: native to Europe and Asia, brought by the colonists and used as a salad and pot herb, as medicine, and dye.
- to serve as a pollinator garden for butterflies, bees and other pollinators