How One Couple Turned Their Backyard Into an Arboretum

This is what happens if you stay put, and keep digging holes: An effort that begins innocently enough — planting a garden at home — may grow on you. And it could morph into an arboretum.

Hortus Arboretum & Botanical Gardens, a 21-acre expanse in Stone Ridge, N.Y., with about 11 acres under cultivation, got its start as Allyson Levy and Scott Serrano’s much smaller backyard. It has been 25 years since the couple, both visual artists, moved from San Francisco to Ulster County, where they now count more than 240 genera in their plant collection.

And it all began, as most gardens do, by making space for irresistible finds from local nurseries — no master plan involved.