A Walk Through the Gardens

Lowest Gardens
The lowest gardens surrounding the main house are home to our small, but choice alpine collection. Plants like Saxifraga, Daphne, Dianthus, and Phlox are tucked into a rocky, gritty mix that has a low nutritional quality and drains freely to mimic rocky, mountainous conditions. Along the house are many flowering shrubs including Beautybush, Kolkwitzia (Linnaea) amabilis, Harlequin Glory Bower, Clerodendrum trichotomum, and a collection of Clematis including the ever-blooming Clematis ‘Rooguchi’.   The Solangerie, a conflation of Solarium and Orangerie, is tucked in beside the Rose Grotto at the bottom end of the first level. It is the winter home to our tender perennials and in the summer it is a cool and quiet seating area filled with shade-loving tropicals.

Terraced Gardens
The second level features the Blue and Silver Bed, a collection of plants that are blue and silver, dwarf shrubs, ornamental grasses, and a peak into the pool at the top of the waterfall.

The third level features our Katsura Garden, a soaring perennial garden centered around a beautiful specimen of Cercidiphyllum japonica ‘Brotzman’s Select’. The four quadrant beds feature a foundation shrub (Magnolia, Viburnum, and two kinds of Hydrangea) and are surrounded by garden classics with a special focus on Delphiniums.

Cork Oak Terrace
Moving up to the next terrace there is an open lawn featuring two Oak trees, Quercus variabilis and Quercus rubra, and a Ginkgo biloba ‘Autumn Gold’ with one flower border in the back. This area is very new, planted in 2023, and still in progress but we are excited to provide seating and a bit of shade for visitors to the garden.

At the very top of the garden sits our fully restored 1919 Lord and Burnham Greenhouse. This beautiful curved glass structure has recently been completed, outfitted with all the ventilation and heating necessary to use it year-round. We will be starting our first seeds in 2024 and will continue to build the collection from there.