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.
- 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 acre 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 Museum of Natural History Glass Flowers Gallery: 26 Oxford Street,
Cambridge, MA 02138
(617)495-2341.
- 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
Gardens: 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.
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.
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:
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.
Magic Wings Butterfly
Conservatory & Gardens: 281 Greenfield Road,
South Deerfield, MA 01373 (413)665-2805
- This remarkable18,400-square foot facility includes a
8,000-sq. ft. glass conservatory filled with butterflies, moths and
tropical vegetation. With an 80-degree tropical-like environment
year round, features include a heart-shaped pond with Japanese koi, a
waterfall, peaceful music and hundreds of butterflies fluttering freely
through the air.
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:
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 (Route 7),
Pittsfield, MA 01201
(413)499-9343.
- This arboretum is named after the former Pittsfield
Superintendent of Parks and Recreation -- a lovely tribute. In addition to the
many varieties of trees and shrubs, it features a Butterfly and
Hummingbird Garden and a Memory Garden.
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.