Massachusetts Gardens

 Adams National Historic Site: 135 Adams Street, Quincy, MA 02169-0531 (617)770-1175.

Five generations of the Adams family lived in the two historic homes which are preserved, along with a church and 12.59 acres of grounds including gardens.

 Alexandra Botanic Garden, Hunnewell Arboretum and the Ferguson Greenhouses: Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA 02181 (617)283-1000 or (617)235-0422.

15 greenhouses contain more than 1,000 different plants with collections of desert plants, tropical plants, orchids, ferns, subtropical flora, temperate plants, and aquatic plants. The botanical gardens and arboretum display over 500 species of woody plants. The Jennings Biblical Garden displays many of the plants mentioned in biblical texts.

 Aptucxet Trading Post and Museum: 24 Aptucxet Road, Box 3095, Bourne, MA 02532-0795 (508)759-8167.

This replica of 1627 Pilgrim trading post also offers a windmill, 17th-century herb and wildflower gardens, Native American artifacts and President Cleveland's private railroad station.

 Arnold Arboretum: c/o Harvard University, 125 Arborway, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130-3519 (617)524-1718.

This magnificent 265 arboretum, designed in 1872 by Charles Sprague Sargent in collaboration with Frederick Law Olmsted, contains one of the largest and best documented woody plant collections in the world (4,463 taxa). Special collections include the Larz Anderson Bonsai Collection, the Lilac Collection, the Eleanor Cabot Bradley Collection of Rosaceous Plants, and Chinese Path.

 Ashumet Holly and Wildlife Sanctuary: 286 Ashumet Road, East Falmouth, MA 02536 (508)563-6390.

This 49 acre sanctuary, formerly a private holly tree farm dedicated to collecting holly plants which were disappearing on Cape Cod in the 1920s as development intensified, exhibits more than 1,000 holly trees of eight species and 65 varieties including American, English, Japanese, Chinese and hybrids.

 Bartholomew's Cobble: Weatogue Road, Ashley Falls, Sheffield, MA 01222 (413)229-8600 (413)298-3239.

A 294 acre reservation can be viewed by trails meandering through forest, meadow and pastureland to the top of Hulburt's Hill for views of the Housatonic valley. A natural rock garden with ferns and wildflowers is featured.

 Berkshire Botanical Garden: Routes 102 and 183, P.O. Box 826, Stockbridge, MA 01262 (413)298-3926.

This lovely 15 acre garden, founded in 1934, showcases historic herb gardens, annual and perennial beds, a pond garden, a rose garden, a children's garden, a greenhouse with succulents, a primrose walk, 200 varieties of day lilies, spring daffodils, flowering crabapples, demonstration vegetable gardens, and a woodland trail.

 Botanic Garden of Smith College and Lyman Conservatory: College Lane, Northampton, MA 01063 (413)585-2740.

The College displays a remarkable 127 acres of gardens and arboretum, including the Systematics Garden, the Rock Garden (the oldest extant rock garden in the U.S.), the Ruth Brown Richardson Perennial Border, the President's House Garden, the Herb Garden, the Rose Garden, The Japanese Garden for Reflection and Contemplation, the Woodland Garden, the Rhododendron Garden, the Edith Branwell Reilly Hand Wildflower Garden, the Capen Garden and the Campus Arboretum. The Conservatory houses over 2500 species of tropical, subtropical, and desert plants.

 Bridge of Flowers: Water Street, Shelburne Falls, MA 01370 (413)625-2143.

This 400 foot former trolley bridge across the Deerfield River was transformed by the Shelburne Falls Women's Club into a showcase for over 500 varieties of plants blooming from April through October.

 The Butterfly Place: 120 Tyngsboro Road, Westford, MA 01886 (978)392-0955.

A 3,100 square foot 27 foot high glass atrium houses up to 500 butterflies of 50 species and colorful plants and shrubs that provide nectar for the butterflies.

 Capron Park Zoo: 201 County Street, Route 123, Attleboro, MA 02703 (508)222-3047.

This 7 acre zoo in a 63 acre park, completely rebuilt in 1989, features exhibits including Native North American Wildlife, Life in the Dark, Primates, and a Tropical Rain Forest Building.

 Case Estates of the Arnold Arboretum: 135 Wellesley Street, Weston, MA 02193 (617)524-1718.

This 75 acre former estate is a nursery and experimental station for the Arnold  Arboretum. Special collections include ground-cover plots (140 types), a Rhododendron Display Garden, a Perennial Garden (emphasizing native-American plants) and collections of hosta, daylilies, iris and peonies.

 Chesterwood: 4 Williamsville Road, Route 183, Stockbridge, MA 01262-0827 (413)298-3579.

The former studio of the sculptor of the Lincoln Memorial includes his home and gardens.

 Codman House Gardens: Codman Road, Lincoln, MA 01773 (781)259-8843.

This Gregorian style house built in 1740, includes 15 acres of grounds displaying specimen trees and shrubbery ordered from Europe and Asia, an early 20th-century classical Italian garden, and an English cottage garden.

 Conant and Wood House Formal Garden:  55-65 Palmer Ave. on the Village Green, Falmouth, MA 02540. (508)-548-4857

Maintained by the Falmouth Garden Club, this restored formal garden with boxwood hedges graces these two historic houses.

 Cushing House Museum and Garden: 98 High Street, Newburyport, MA 01950 (978)462-2681.

The grounds of this dignified federal period mansion include a 19th century garden, an herb garden, and fruit trees. A formal boxwood garden with perennials and roses still follow the design brought back from France by Caleb Cushing in 1830.

 The Eleanor Cabot Bradley Reservation: 2468B Washington Street, Canton, MA (781)401-3285.

A delightful combination of formal gardens and naturalistic landscape grace this former estate. Features include a brick lattice-walled Italianate garden with perennials, bulbs, and annuals in brick-edged parterres around a tapis vert or green carpet of grass, and naturalistic plantings of rhododendrons, dogwoods and azaleas.

 Endicott Park and Glen Magna Farm: 57 Forest Street, Danvers, MA 01923-1505 (508)774-6518 or (508)774-9165.

This public park, formerly an early 20th century gentleman's farm, features a Frederick Law Olmsted designed grounds, the Glen Magna mansion and the Derby Summers House (a Tea House) designed by Samuel McIntire. Extensively restored formal gardens, a water garden and statuary add to the beauty of the site.

 General Sylvanus Thayer Birthplace: 786 Washington Street, Braintree, MA 02184 (781)848-1640 .

The Braintree Historical Society maintains the house which was the birthplace of the "Father of West Point" and its gardens.

 Gore Place: 52 Gore Street, Waltham, MA 02453-6866 (781)894-2798.

The indisputably lovely former summer home of the 7th Governor of Massachusetts is a brick federal-style mansion surrounded by 45 acres of lawns, gardens and open fields.

 Hancock Shaker Villages: Junction of Routes 20 and 41, Box 927, Pittsfield, MA 01202-0927 (413)443-0188 or (800) 817-1137.

This living history museum, former home of six communal Shaker families, exhibits several herb gardens (with over 90 of the 300 medicinal herb varieties used by the Shakers) and vegetable gardens. The Shakers, respected for their honesty and the quality of their seeds, were among the first Americans to sell seed in small paper packets.

 Harlow Old Fort House: 119 Sandwich Street, Plymouth, MA 02360 (508)746-0012 or (508)746-3017.

This 1677 former cooper's home is a working museum and heritage craft center that includes an herb garden.

 Harvard University Botanical Museum: 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (617)495-3045.

The plants are not alive and they do not qualify as a garden, but Harvard's extraordinary collection of 3000 glass flowers representing more than 830 plant species is a wonderful garden stroll in the bleak days of winter. Begun in 1886, the project took more than five decades to complete.

 Heritage Plantation of Sandwich: Pine and Grove Street, Sandwich, MA 02563 (508)888-3300 or 508) 888-1222 .

The 76 acre grounds, formerly the home of rhododendron breeder Charles Dexter, display more than 1,000 varieties of trees, shrubs and flowers. The thousands of rhododendrons include 125 of the known 145 Dexter cultivars. Other features include a Holly Dell and Daylily, Herb, Hosta and Heather Gardens.

 House of the Seven Gables: 54 Turner Street, Salem, MA 01970 (978) 744-0991.

The three historic houses are graced by several gardens that display four centuries of planting schemes, with special features including a wisteria arbor, a rose trellis, a chestnut tree, a shrub border, hostas and lilacs.

 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum: 280 The Fenway, Boston, MA 02115 (617)566-1401.

This fascinating museum offers a lovely courtyard filled with fragrant flowers and vines.

 James P. Kelleher Rose Garden: Back Bay Fens, Park Drive, Boston, MA (617)635-4505.

The Back Bay Fens, a 57 acre public park along the banks of the Charles River, is one link in the "Emerald Necklace" of Boston parks designed by Frederick Law Olmstead.

 Jeremiah Lee Mansion: 161 Washington Street, Marblehead, MA 01945 (781)631-1069.

This 1768 Georgian mansion, belonging to an early patriot, features 18th-century-style historically accurate gardens recently restored by the Marblehead Garden Club. The gardens includes a perennial border, a sundial garden, a lower garden and a herb garden.

 John Whipple House: 1 South Village Green, Ipswich, MA 01938 (978)356-2641.

This 17th century timber-framed house, preserved by the Ipswich Historical Society, displays a "front of the house" garden that replicates a housewife's garden of the 17th century with over 60 colonial flowers and herbs.

 Jonathan Ball House: 37 Lexington Road, Concord, MA 01742 (978)369-2578.

This 1753 house, home of the Concord Art Association, includes a lovely garden on the grounds.

 Kelsey Arboretum, 18 Kelsey Road, Boxford, MA 01921 (978) 561-5611.

The Kelsey Arboretum in Boxford offers four acres of ornamental trees and shrubs planted by Harlan Kelsey, an early 20th century landscape architect, nurseryman and conservationist.  The Arboretum features hardy native plants, including rhododendrons, azaleas, mountain laurel and more and is in bloom from early April through July.

 King Hooper Mansion: 8 Hooper Street, Marblehead, MA 01945 (781)631-2608.

The original house was constructed in 1728, with the front added in 1745, by this Marblehead merchant so generous he was nicknamed "king". The garden uses formal boxwood hedge squares to enclose flower beds with antique flowers typical of 18th-century gardens.

 Lexington Gardens: 93 Hancock Street, Lexington, MA 02420 (781)862-7000.

This retail nursery is the site of the PBS program Victory Garden.

 Longfellow National Historic Site: 105 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (617)876-4491.

This historic home of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Washington's headquarters during the siege of Boston is now open after a renovation including restoration of the grounds to recapture the historic design of leading landscape architects.

 The Lyman Estate Greenhouses: (Another web site.) 185 Lyman Street, Waltham, MA 02154 (781) 891-1985.

This 37 acre country estate was laid out according to the principles of 18th-century English naturalistic design featuring specimen trees, a 600-foot peach wall, and late 19th-century rhododendrons and azaleas. The greenhouses include the Grape House (for exotic fruit), the Camellia House, and a greenhouse for fresh flowers.

 Massachusetts Horticultural Society at Elm Bank: (Select "Elm Bank" from menu.) Route 16 or Dover Road, Dover, MA (617)536-9280

This new educational center for the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, formerly a country estate, will include new or renovated gardens including educational gardens, trial gardens, commercial exhibits, garden club and plant society gardens, woodlands, a tree nursery, a children's garden, a restored Italianate garden, and a restored Asian garden.

 Mayflower Society House: 4 Winslow Street, Plymouth, MA 02360 (508)746-2590 or 746-3879.

Home of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, this 18th century house is graced by formal gardens.

 Merwin House: 14 Main Street, Stockbridge, MA 01262 (413)298-4703.

With the lovely name "Tranquility", this 1825 brick Federal-style home on the Housatonic River includes gardens.

 Mission House: Main Street, Stockbridge, MA 01262. (413)298-3239.

This 1739 house, built by the first missionary to the Stockbridge Indians, is surrounded by a colonial garden with herbs and perennials.

 Mount Auburn Cemetery: Website for the Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery, 580 Mt. Auburn Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (617)547-7105.

Established in 1832 by members of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, Mt. Auburn was the nation's first pastoral cemetery and is renowned for its statuary, ornamental plantings, sculpted pastoral forms, and winding pathways.

 Mt. Holyoke College Botanic Garden: Mt. Holyoke College, 50 College Street, South Hadley, MA 01075-6440 (413)538-2116.

The Botanic Garden includes the entire campus as an arboretum, a Victorian greenhouse complex, and a number of perennial gardens. The 6,500 square foot Talcott Greenhouse displays special collections of cacti and succulents, orchids, ferns, begonias, bromeliads, aquatics, as well as other tropical and subtropical plants. Campus gardens include the 1904 Garden, the Drue Matthews Garden, the Virginia Craig Rhododendron Garden, the Willits-Hallowell Courtyard Garden, and the Ciruti Center Courtyard Garden, while the campus itself showcases many rare and unusual trees and shrubs as well as collections of maples, magnolias, cherries, dogwoods, daphnes, witch hazels and winter hazels.

 Mytoi Garden: Dike Road, Chappaquiddick Island, Martha's Vineyard, MA (508)627-7689 or (508)693-7662.

This small, Japanese-style garden and pine forest displays native and exotic plants and trees and a pond and stream. Plans are underway for a rock garden, a birch grove, a blueberry thicket, and plantings of camellias, primrose, and bamboo.

 Naumkeag: Prospect Hill Road, Stockbridge, MA 01262 (413)298-3239.

Designed by Stanford White in 1885 as a summer residence, this imposing mansion features remarkable formal gardens designed by Fletcher Steele from 1926-1956. Naumkeag means "place of rest".

 New England Wild Flower Society Garden in the Woods: 180 Hemenway Road, North Framingham, MA 01701-2699 (508)877-7630 or (508)877-6574(recording).

This renowned wildflower garden displays more than 1600 varieties of plants with many rare and endangered native specimens as well as the New England Garden of Rare and Endangered Plants.

 Norcross Wildlife Sanctuary: 30 Peck Road, Monson, MA 01057 (413)267-9654.

Four thousand acres of wooded hills, lakes and streams are home to naturalistic, informal gardens using native and exotic plants and an herb garden.

 The Old Ordinary: 21 Lincoln Street, Hingham, MA 02043 (617)749-0013.

This fourteen room house museum showcases a garden whose design is attributed to Frederick Law Olmstead, Jr., and is maintained and cared for by the Garden Club of Hingham.

 Old Sturbridge Village: Route 20, 1 Old Sturbridge Village Road, Sturbridge, MA 01566 (508) 347-3362.

Horticultural highlights are the Herb Garden (300 varieties), door-yard gardens and formal gardens. Kitchen gardens offer early 19th-century vegetable varieties, and fruits. Field crops typical of the period are also grown.

 Plimoth Plantation: Route 3A and Plimoth Plantation Highway, 133 Warren Avenue, Plymouth, MA 02362 (508)746-1622.

Plimoth recreates the entire 1627 Pilgrim settlement and a Wampanoag Indian homesite as a remarkable and accurate living history museum. The Pilgrim homes include kitchen gardens for food and medicine.

 Polly Hill Arboretum: 809 State Road, West Tisbury, Martha's Vineyard, MA 02575 (508)693-9426.

Named after Polly Hill who at age 50 began to study woody plants and trees, this 60 acre arboretum contains more than 2,000 varieties. About 80 of her selections have been designated as original cultivars, including rhododendrons, magnolias, stewartia, hollies, conifers and dogwoods. The site is also the birthplace of the famous North Tisbury azaleas. The Arboretum opened on Memorial Day, 1998.

 Public Garden: Beacon/Tremont Streets next to Boston Common, Boston, MA.

Part of Boston's Emerald Necklace (designed by Frederick Law Olmsted), the Public Garden is the oldest public botanical garden in the United States. Besides the lovely flora, the visitor will find Swan Boats, a bridge, a statue of George Washington on a horse, and child-size statues of the ducklings in "Make Way for Ducklings".

 Ropes Mansion: 318 Essex Street, Salem, MA 01970 (978)744-3390 or (978)745-1876.

The Mansion is one of several historic buildings owned by the Peabody Essex Museum. A trustee, John Robinson, transformed the grounds from an informal landscape into a colonial revival garden with trellised arbors, an Italian Renaissance Revival wall, and formal beds featuring native and exotic plants.

 Rotch-Jones-Duff House and Garden Museum: 396 County Street, New Bedford, MA 02740 (508)997-1401.

A Greek Revival Mansion built for a whaling merchant, this site offers historic gardens featuring a wooden pergola, a formal boxwood rose parterre garden, a wildflower walk, a cutting garden and a boxwood specimen garden.

 Sedgwick Gardens at Long Hill Reservation: 572 Essex Street, Beverly, MA 01915 (508) 921-1944.

This 114 acre estate of a former horticulturalist contains fields, woods and and 5 acres of cultivated ground. The formal gardens have more than 400 varieties of trees, shrubs and flowers laid out in a series of garden rooms, featuring garden ornaments, structures, and statuary, as well as outstanding collections of rare trees and shrubs, tree peonies, rhododendrons, azaleas, Japanese maples, cherries, clematis, and stewartias.

 Spohr Gardens: 45 Fells Road, Falmouth, MA 02540 (508)548-0623.

This lovely 6 acre garden created by Margaret and Charles Spohr is set on Oyster Pond and annually showcases thousands of daffodils, followed by rhododendrons and daylilies.

 Stanley Park: 400 Western Avenue, P.O. Box 1191, Westfield, MA 01085 (413)568-9312.

Horticultural attractions in the 200-acre Stanley Park include a formal rose garden, Japanese garden, herb and perennial gardens, an American Wildflower Society Display Garden, a five-acre arboretum, a rhododendron display garden, and an All-America Rose Selections Public Garden.

 Stevens-Coolidge Place: (Enter Stevens Coolidge in search box), 139 Andover Street, North Andover, MA 01845 (978)682-3580 or (978)356-4351 .

Five acres of period gardens surround a Colonial Revival-style home housing collections from the Coolidge's world travels.

Suburban Experiment Station: University of Massachusetts, 240 Beaver Street, Waltham, MA 02154-8021 (413)545-2243.

This site, associated with the University of Massachusetts Experiment Station, includes several trial gardens.

 Tower Hill Botanic Garden: 11 French Drive, Box 598, Boylston, MA 01505-0598 (508)869-6111.

This 132 acre Botanic Garden, opened in 1986, will not be fully complete until 2040, but already contains a multitude of lovely gardens. Gardens include the Lawn Garden (bordered by 350 species of trees and shrubs underplanted with perennials), the Secret Garden (with a pool, statuary, double pergola, annuals and perennials), a Cottage Garden (annuals, perennials and woody plants), a Wildlife Garden (with bird feeders), a Vegetable Garden (unusual vegetables and annuals), a Systematic Garden (plants arranged in their evolutionary sequence and in plant families) and the newly completed Orangerie (a 4000 square foot conservatory housing temperate and semi-tropical plants).

 Vincent J. Hebert Arboretum at Springside Park: 874 North Street, Pittsfield, MA 01201 (413)499-9343.

This arboretum is named after the former Pittsfield Superintendent of Parks and Recreation -- a lovely tribute.

  Walter Hunnewell Pinetum: 845 Washington Street, Wellesley , MA 02181 (617)235-0422.

This 39 acre site showcases rhododendrons, azaleas, topiaries, a conifer collection and a Victorian conservatory displaying an orchid collection.  An article about the Pinetum.

 Weston Nurseries: 93 East Main Street, Route 135, Hopkinton, MA 01748 (508)435-3414 (800)322-2002.

An astonishing 650 acres of plantings can be viewed at this commercial nursery which specializes in native trees and shrubs.