Townsend “Towney” Scudder, Jr., son of Townsend Scudder III and Virginia Boody Scudder, was born on January 3, 1927 in New Haven, Connecticut and passed away among loving family at the Haven at Otter Creek in Middlebury, Vermont on May 6, 2016. A graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy and Yale University, he received his MBA from New York University. He served in World War II as a cadet-midshipman in The US Merchant Marine Cadet Corps., first at Kings Point, then at sea in both the Atlantic and Pacific theatres of the war.
He married Mary Constance Bordman, Concord, Massachusetts in 1950. With Mary, Towney developed a passion for horticulture. They settled in Neshanic, New Jersey, starting with a small sheep farm and rare plant nursery where they raised four children. In 1965 they founded Ambleside Gardens & Nursery, in Belle Mead, New Jersey, which to this day is one of New Jersey’s most unique garden centers, specializing in dwarf evergreens, Japanese Maples, and other uncommon plants. Ambleside won the Governor’s Trophy for the best garden at the New Jersey Flower Show in each of the six years in which it exhibited. Towney and Mary retired to Vermont in 2013. Their son, David, continues to own and manage Ambleside Gardens.
Towney is survived by Mary, his wife of 65 years and now living in Middlebury, Vermont; a brother, Thayer Scudder of Altadena, California; and his children: John Scudder of Freehold, New Jersey, David Scudder and his wife Robin of East Millstone, New Jersey, Holly Scudder-Chase and her husband Keith of Richmond, Vermont, and Hal Scudder and his wife Carol of Park City, Utah. He is also survived by six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
A celebration of his life will take place at a later date. In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made in his name to the New Jersey Nursery and Landscape Association (www.njnla.com)
