River Bend Gardens is a private botanical garden in the Village of Manchester, dedicated to restoring an Oak Opening, and preserving native Michigan species in their natural communities.
– Wayne & Julie Oliver
River Bend Gardens is a private botanical garden in the Village of Manchester, dedicated to restoring an Oak Opening, and preserving native Michigan species in their natural communities. – Wayne & Julie Oliver
GARDENS
“Surely the American garden will include, and in fact may even be….a restored prairie.”
– William R. Jordan, III
AVIARY
“Ringed Necked Pheasants tolerate slums, but Bobwhite Quail barely, and the lordly Greater Prairie Chicken not at all.”
– Aldo Leopold
BLOG
“A true conservationist is a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers, but borrowed from his children”
– John James Audubon
The monotonous landscape ceases near Ann Arbor; and here the country becomes more interesting as one approaches the high plateau. The dense forests disappear and lakes surrounded by pretty hills and park-like woods, which the Americans call ‘oak openings’ meet the traveler’s eye…”
-Karl Neidhard riding from Ann Arbor
to Pleasant Lake – August, 1834
For the first few miles we passed through the woods… Soon we reached the so-called oak openings, where the trees stand a few paces apart and where the ground is overgrown with luxurious grass. Passage is obstructed neither by bushes nor by fallen trees. Small knolls alternate with lovely little valleys… No park laid out by human hands could compare with this natural setting.”
-Karl Neidhard riding from Ann Arbor
to Pleasant Lake – August, 1834
At this season of the year the country was beautiful beyond description, the plains were covered at intervals as far as the eye could reach with wide-spreading forest trees which gave it the appearance of an immense park, and the earth was covered with a rich carpet of beautifully variegated wild flowers and grapes…”
-J.W. Wing ref Scio Twp. sec. 25 near Dexter in June, 1834
The scene was beautiful beyond description. The timber consisted of large oak trees standing several rods apart and the intermediate space between them was covered with bright green grass and beautiful flowers. The whole country had been burnt over every fall or spring, I presume, for centuries, and everything had been destroyed except these giants of the forest. It did appear as if one-half of the vegetation was flowers. Most of them were about eighteen inches high and when moved by the wind the effect was wonderful. I have never seen in any of our large cities a park that was its equal.”
-J.W. Wing re: Scio Twp, sec. 25 – June, 1839
