Rhode Island Gardens

 The Astors' Beechwood Mansion: 580 Bellevue Avenue, Newport, RI 02840 (401)846-3772.

This extravagant 1881 oceanfront mansion, home of Charlotte Astor (the "Queen" of Victorian society), is now a living history museum on American life in the Gilded Age.

 Blithewold Mansion, Gardens and Arboretum: 101 Ferry Road (Rte. 114), Bristol, RI 02809 (401)253-2707.

This lavish 45 room stone English Country Manor style mansion, a former summer home, displays 33 acres of beautifully landscaped grounds. A 10 acre lawn down to Narragansett Bay is edged with more than 1500 trees and shrubs representing 250 native and exotic species and varieties. The North Garden (or Sunken Garden) is formal, but the rest of the recreated gardens are more naturalistic, including a rose garden, a Japanese water garden, a 30 foot tall bamboo stand, the Bosquet (woodland planted with 50,000 daffodils), a rock garden, display gardens and a giant redwood.

 The Breakers: 401Ochre Point Avenue, Newport, RI 02840 (401)847-6543 or (401)847-1000.

This former summer home of Cornelius Vanderbilt II, a 70 room Italian Renaissance style palazzo, includes parterre borders on two sides of the house plus greenhouses and their 2 acre summer gardens providing plants and cut flowers.

 The Elms: 367 Bellevue Avenue, Newport, RI 02840 (401)847-0478 or(401)847-1000.

This French Chateau style summer residence of a coal magnate offers Classical Revival gardens featuring terraces with marble and bronze sculpture, a park of specimen trees and a lower garden with marble tea houses, fountains, a sunken garden and carriage house and garage.

 Green Animals Topiary Garden: 380 Cory's Lane, Portsmouth, RI 02871-1324 (401)683-1267 or (401)847-1000.

This 7 acre estate offers a Victorian house overlooking Narragansett Bay plus formal topiaries, vegetable and herb gardens, and orchards. The fabulous and whimsical 80 pieces of topiary, including 21 birds and animals, are sculpted from privet, yew and English boxwood.

 Hunter House: 54 Washington Street, Newport, RI 02840 (401)847-7516 or (401)847-1000.

This historic Georgian house offers beds of perennials and annuals enclosed by boxwood and a wisteria covered pergola.

 Marble House: 596 Bellevue Avenue, Newport, RI 02840 (401)847-2445 or (401)847-1000.

This extravagant summer home, built by William Vanderbilt, with formal grounds, includes a Chinese Tea House on the cliffs used for entertaining and suffrage rallies.

 Roger Williams Park Botanical Center: 950 Elmwood Avenue, Providence , RI 02900 (401)785-9450.

Visitors can enjoy 2 greenhouses, a Japanese Garden and a Rose Garden. The Rhode Island Rose Society is helping to renovate the rose garden by replanting Canadian and Brownell hardy roses, English Roses, Old Garden Roses, and more modern varieties.

 Roger Williams Park Zoo: 950 Elmwood Avenue, Providence, RI 02907-3655 (401)467-0150.

This 40 acre zoo is home to over 1000 animals representing 150 species. Extensive plantings are chosen to resemble those in the animals' native habitats. (A horticultural map is available.) Currently under construction is Habitat, RI, a permanent 2000 square foot interactive, multi-sensory complex, displaying the plants and animals of nine diverse Rhode Island habitats.

 Rosecliff: 548 Bellevue Avenue, Newport, RI 02840 (401)847-5793 or (401)847-1000.

Rosecliff, a truly grand mansion, was named in honor of the "American Beauty" rose which was developed by the owner of the previous cottage on the site. The rose garden, dating back to the previous owner, and features is a sizable planting of "America," a climbing rose. Beds of begonias ornament the entrance and a central path and fountain.

 Slater Mill Historic Site: 67 Roosevelt Avenue, Pawtucket , RI 02860-0696 (401)725-8638.

The 5.5 acre site of the first water powered cotton spinning mill is now a museum complex with three buildings, a dam, a power canal and a riverside park.

 Smith's Castle: 55 Richard Smith Drive, North Kingstown, RI 02853 (401)294-3521.

This 1678 plantation house on the site of a trading center established by Roger Williams is surrounded by lovely grounds and gardens including an 18th century herb and flower garden. It was recently declared a National Landmark site for its archeological discoveries.

 Wanton-Lyman-Hazard House: 17 Broadway, Newport, RI (401)846-0813.

This 1675 house, the site of the Stamp Act Riot, displays a colonial herb garden.

 Whitehall Museum House: 311 Berkeley Avenue, Middletown, RI 02842 (401)846-3116.

This 1729 house, built by an Anglican Bishop, is authentically furnished and maintained by the National Society of the Colonial Dames in Rhode Island.

 (Samuel) Whitehorne House: 416 Thames Street, Newport, RI 02840-6732 (401)849-7300.

This 18th century house exhibits hand-made silver, pewter and furniture and features a traditional colonial manor garden.

 Wilcox Park: 44 Broad Street, Westerly, RI 02891 (401)596-8590.

This historic 18 acre public park features specimen trees, shrubs, display flower beds, a koi pond, a dwarf conifer collection, a fountain, monuments, a daylily collection, a garden of touch, smell and taste with Braille labels, and perennial borders.