The fall exhibit at Sonnenberg Gardens, 151 Charlotte Street, Canandaigua, New York, is “Yuuga: Contemporary Botanical Watercolors from Japan“. This traveling exhibit, open from September 10 through October 18, 2011, comes from the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, a research division of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The title Yuuga, which translates as “elegant, graceful and refined,” aptly describes these 35 original artworks by 29 artists representing a selection of the best contemporary botanical art produced in Japan in the last 40 years. Many of the artworks were added to the Hunt Institute’s collection from its International Exhibition of Botanical Art & Illustration, a triennial series that has occurred since 1964.

If you’ll be in western New York on September 9, 2011, Road Trips Gardeners, consider buying a $9 ticket to the exhibit — plus a Moon-Viewing Ceremony in the Japanese Garden. Hours for the opening are 6 to 9 p.m.

Sonnenberg Gardens is a New York State Historic Park offering one of the few remaining estates in the U.S. with a Queen Anne-style mansion and formal gardens.

Built in 1887, Sonnenberg’s 40-room mansion offers a glimpse of what life was like in the late nineteenth century. The estate includes nine formal gardens representing many cultures and historic periods including 12th-century Asia, fourth-century Rome and the French Renaissance. A 20-acre arboretum of rare and exotic trees, plants and unique landscapes stretches across the grounds, while a Lord & Burnham wood-and-glass greenhouse complex of the Victorian period features varieties of orchids, succulents, tropical plants and flowers, as well as vegetables.

The Hunt Institute specializes in the history of botany and all aspects of plant science and serves the international scientific community through research and documentation.

(Photo courtesy of Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation)