Description
An historical site, Linwood Gardens, of great significance in the history of the American tree peony is located in Pavilion, NY, southwest of Rochester. Linwood Gardens belongs to the Gratwick family. William Gratwick worked for the first significant breeder of peonies and tree peonies in America, Arthur P. Saunders, who taught chemistry at Hamilton College in Clinton, NY. Saunders conducted his breeding experiments from about 1915 until his death in 1953. He created over 17,000 cultivars, including about 300 herbaceous peonies and 70 tree peonies. His tree peonies passed to William Gratwick who continued his breeding work with a friend, Nassos Daphnis at Linwood Gardens. Together they created a legacy of American tree peonies that are among the most unique and beautiful in the world. In an era where the tree peony is enjoying a huge increase in popularity (due largely to the importation of many tree peonies from China), Linwood Gardens should be visited by more tourists and gardeners. Because it has been marketed only via booklets distributed locally in the spring, it has some visitors, but remains unknown to many. The owner of Linwood Gardens, Lee Gratwick, daughter of William Gratwick who died in the 1988, maintains the gardens and opens it for visitors in May, June, and July. A web site was constructed based on the visual appeal of the flowers and including a map of how to find Linwood Gardens. The web site is part of an on-going experiment in marketing, education, and public relations, and is tied to the strategic plan Lee Gratwick and her family are developing. The goal is to increase the number of visitors to the gardens during selected times in the spring and summer seasons, and to generate more income for the upkeep and maintenance of the property. The web site address for Linwood Gardens currently is http://www.artsrochester.org/artists/lwgardens/. Discussions are underway to create a domain name of www.linwoodgardens.org as the future address of the site, which will be updated at least annually. Another use of this site is as a teaching tool for students in Technology in Service Systems, 0619-426. Students develop business web sites and are shown this site as a model for visual marketing of a tourist destination.
Date of creation, presentation, or exhibit
2004
Document Type
Scholarly Blog, Podcast or Website
Department, Program, or Center
Department of Service Systems (CAST)
Recommended Citation
Whitlock, Carol, "Creation of a web site for Linwood Gardens, a NY state historical site in Pavilion, NY" (2004). Accessed from
https://repository.rit.edu/other/721
Campus
American College of Management and Technology in Croatia
Comments
http://www.artsrochester.org/artists/lwgardens/ Note: imported from RIT’s Digital Media Library running on DSpace to RIT Scholar Works in February 2014.