best botanical gardens in new england

Open year round, $5 adults. Location: 180 Hemenway Rd, Framingham, MA 01701. Located in Sandwich, the Heritage Museum & Gardens is one of the great botanical gardens in Massachusetts.

A visitor center features programs for the public. Hi Douglas. Opens in April. Worth a mention for locals who somehow havent yet been, the Arnold Arboretum (arboretum.harvard.edu) in Jamaica Plain is one of the states most famous, founded in 1872 on lands deeded to Harvard University specifically for the study of agricultural endeavors. The 39 architecturally historic structures that make up the museum, meanwhile, include barns, a lighthouse, a jail, a general store, and a steamboat. Its incredibly picturesque and will make you feel like youre in another world. Enjoy 20 acres under cultivation as well as the 40 acres of woodland. Plus, since its located on Cape Cod, theres so much to do right in the area where the gardens are located. If youre fascinated by butterflies, this is the garden to visit. Around the Boston Public Garden, you can also find lots of local food trucks if you get hungry.

Garden in the Woods, 180 Hemenway Road, Framingham.

Plus, since its located on. The Orangerie hosts winter displays. This is one of the most well-known botanic gardens in Massachusetts and has seventeen different gardens in it, making it incredibly unique. Staffers harness a truly rugged environment and demonstrate what can be done with ledge, hillside, woodland, and waterfront. If youre anywhere in western Massachusetts, this is one that you wont want to miss out on because its so well kept! Theres The Flume & Donald Marvin Daylily Garden which features LEGO dragonflies on fake lily pads, the McGraw Family Garden of the Senses with beautiful water fixtures, and the Dexter Rhodendron Garden, which is incredibly picturesque, and more.

The deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum (781-259-8355, decordova.org) in Lincoln is a contemporary art museum on the former estate of Lizzie de Cordova and her husband, Julian, who in 1930 gifted the property to the town on the condition that it would become a public art museum after he died. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. This is a tranquil way to explore the park while also getting acquainted with your surroundings. New Englands largest botanical garden is a 295-acre masterpiece that offers living proof that the coast can be a great place to garden, despite the wind and salt air. Free, donations are accepted. A 5-mile trail network (groomed in the winter for dogsledding and snowshoeing) presents an opportunity for quiet reflection and contemplation in spring and summer when wildflowers abound.

The showstopper here is New Englands largest indoor public garden: 23,000 square feet of greenhouse space filled with plant life in its myriad forms, from delicate orchids to spiky cacti and soaring palms. Follow Boston.com on Instagram (Opens in a New Tab), Follow Boston.com on Twitter (Opens in a New Tab), Like Boston.com on Facebook (Opens in a New Tab), 'I just stopped flying its not worth getting my chair broken', New England has one of the most beautiful wedding venues in America, according to Architectural Digest, 62 Massachusetts beaches you need to visit at least once.

In Boothbay, the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens (207-633-8000, mainegardens.org) features close to 300 acres of plants native to Maine or other Northern coastal climates. The gardens include the largest collection of Dexter Rhododendrons in the world, as well as the North American Hydrangea Test Garden, with the greatest collection of hydrangeas on display on the entire East Coast. It has frequent festivals and special events. bicton Theres also top-notch birding, and the arboretum counts the elusive warbler as among its many feathered residents. This garden features around sixty acres of land that you can roam and includes tons of plants, flowers, trees, and more. 508-877-3658. www.newfs.org. paths sloped shade naturalness waldgarten yankeemagazine maravillosos rhododendron gardenplanter hillside landschaftsbau engineer botanique horticulture 101gardening homegardenlandscape

A seasonal special eventGardens Aglow: A Treasured Holiday Traditiontakes place in the lighted gardens from Nov. 25 to Dec. 18, and has become a favorite holiday tradition for many locals. Amy is the founder of New England with love.

Location: 5 W Stockbridge Rd, Stockbridge, MA 01262.

Its incredibly picturesque and will make you feel like youre in another world.

There are usually different ones throughout the year and often include art pieces to illustrate whatever the topic is.

Located on Marthas Vineyard, the native woodland on this site is both beautiful and unique. Its truly a green sanctuary that will allow you to relax and think while being amongst beautiful nature.

Gardens open year round. Its located in Westford and is particularly popular among families visiting the area. Located on 36 acres in the historic Elm Bank Reservation is the Massachusetts Horticultural Societys several gardens including Weezies Garden, The Bressingham Garden, The Italianate Garden, and more.

Their flowers, plants, and trees are extraordinary. Theres also lots of inspiration in the dahlia collection, sculpted hedges, and tropical conservatory. Blithewold Mansion, named Yankee Magazines Best 5 Public Gardens in New England in 2010, is a 33-acre estate on Narragansett Bay in Bristol, R.I.

Location: 120 Tyngsboro Rd, Westford, MA 01886. Plus, theres quite a bit of education in the garden as well.

When not working on websites, Amy is probably reading, cuddling with her husband, son, and cats, & drinking a maple latte. Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site in Cornish, N.H., was the summer home of one of the countrys greatest sculptors, Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907). The Berkshires is genuinely one of the most breathtaking places to visit in Massachusetts, so the garden is also surrounded by more true beauty. A white clapboard Victorian house that served as the estates original owners summer residence is also available to tour. Guests can also tour inside the mansion, furnished just as it was when the 45-room English-style manor house was featured in Country Life magazine in 1910. Opens May. Alyssa Giacobbe is a frequent contributor to the Globe Magazine.

$12 adults; $9 seniors; $56kids age 3 to 17; kids under age 3 free. Terms and Conditions of Use | Privacy Policy | Contact Us, Visit a Nature Center and Botanical Garden Near You, Find Nature Centers and Botanical Gardens Near You. Check the campus website or call for hours of operation, as although it is well worth a visit, they are known for closing early some days. Opens in April.

Offering lectures for the public and a certification process for prospective horticulturists, Berkshire Botanical Garden in Stockbridge is an educational haven. The garden covers around forty-five acres of land and is open to the public. $5 adults; kids 12 and under free. It includes an experimental attempt to test the hardiness of the giant sequoia, native to central California. Tower Hill Botanic Garden in Boylston is only an hours drive west of Boston. The Path of Life Sculpture Garden (802-674-9933. This post was all about the best botanical gardens in Massachusetts. Former Massachusetts governor Alvan T. Fuller liked his formal English perennials and masses of roses, but he was fond of Japanese gardens too. Dont miss the second-to-none childrens garden: two acres of universal fun for all ages. In 2020, the arboretum added a Sensory Garden devoted to plants that emphasize the five senses: sight, smell, hearing, touch, and taste, the last of which includes a bed of sugar snap peas and cherry tomatoes for sampling. The arboretum is part of the Emerald Necklace park designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and renowned for its collection of some 15,000 individual plants. Its also the oldest garden of its kind in all of North America, making it an absolute must-visit for anyone who loves the outdoors.

Then, you let the butterfly go in the end! The herbarium includes dried, pressed plant specimens from as far back as the 1840s and serves as a sort of living lab for students in the CMBGs native plants and ecological horticulture and botanical arts continuing education programs. Augustas Viles Arboretum (207-626-7989, vilesarboretum.org) offers free visitor access to 6 miles of trails through 150 acres of fields and 74 acres of forest featuring more than 5,000 varieties of trees and shrubs most of which are handily tagged and labeled. Best New England Arboretums & Botanical Gardens, https://newengland.com/today/travel/new-england/best-new-england-garden-museums/, Yankee Magazines Ultimate Guide to Autumn in New England, Yankee Magazines Ultimate New England Winter Guide, Yankee Magazines Ultimate New England Summer Guide, 63 Reasons Why We Love the Cape & Islands, Best 5 Lesser-Known New England Coastal Towns to Visit This Summer, Best Blueberry Recipes | 10 Summer Berry Favorites, 7 Old-School New England Ice Cream Favorites. 617-524-1718. www.arboretum.harvard.edu. 5 W Stockbridge Rd, Stockbridge, MA 01262, is one of the top botanical gardens in Massachusetts.

We recommend the Lyman Conservatory greenhouses, home of fascinating specialty gardens such as the Palm House, the Succulent House, and the Camellia Corridor.

The most popular trail is the short Orchard Loop Trail.

$14.50 adult; $5.50 kids age 6 to 17; kids under 6 free Please note: No strollers or carriages allowed. You missed Bedrock Gardens in Lee, NH http://www.finegarden.com. Red Lodge is 5555 feet in elevation so we have a very short growing season. Tower Hill Botanic Garden, 11 French Drive Boylston.

No matter what one you choose to visit, youll absolutely have a fantastic experience. Next, if you find yourself out near Worcester, consider going to the.

Often overlooked, arboretums and botanical gardens intentionally connect people with plants and nature living museums, of sorts, that aim to educate and conserve, and look good doing it. One of the things that makes this garden very unique is that it also has many different events throughout the year.

I love reading the interesting articles in Yankee. When is the Best Time to Visit Massachusetts? Check out some of the family activities planned at the Arnold Arboretum this year. Its very forested compared to other botanical gardens on this list, but thats truly part of what sets it apart!

Receive the latest news and breaking updates, straight from our newsroom to your inbox. Delight in the cutting-edge plantings, fragrant secret garden, heirloom apple trees, hardwoods, woodland folly, plant evolution display, wildlife garden (a birders paradise), and three miles of woodland trails. There are more than 80 pieces of topiary throughout the gardens, including animals and birds, geometric figures, and ornamental designs. Explore diverse gardens, specimen trees, and a 45-room English style manor house filled with antiques and artwork. For the 2022 show, they talked about Putting Botanic Garden Collections to Work for Social and Environmental Justice., Location: 11 French Dr, Boylston, MA 01505. Massachusetts Horticultural Society, 900 Washington St., Wellesley, MA 617-933-4900. www.masshort.org. One of the best ways to get outdoors while traveling is to head to gardens to get some fresh air and enjoy the tranquility. While in the garden, one of the best things to do is to have a picnic on the grounds.

There are a few different gardens there, including the butterfly and pollinator garden, the herb garden, the wildflower garden, and of course, the very picturesque fern collection. In Boylston, the Tower Hill Botanic Garden (508-869-6111, towerhillbg.org) offers guided tours of its 17 gardens over 171 acres by foot or by golf cart, including the handicap-accessible Garden Within Reach, featuring multi-sensory plantings and a vertical green wall. Open year round. Rare and unusual specimens in the East Asian Garden include yellow-groove bamboo and a weeping katsura.

There are many grassy areas throughout where you can relax on a blanket. On Marthas Vineyard, the Polly Hill Arboretum (508-693-9426, pollyhillarboretum.org) in West Tisbury was started from a single seed by the legendary horticulturist Polly Hill, who cultivated 20 acres while preserving 40 additional acres as native woodland. Youll find it on our list of the Best New England Garden Museums (from the same feature package). I get Yankee Magazine, but keep this New England Today coming! There are more than one hundred acres to explore, and there are also museums located right on-site if you also want to learn a bit while visiting. One of the best ways to explore the garden is by going on a self-guided tour.

11 Amazing Things to do in Summer in Massachusetts. The seaside nonprofit Fuller Gardens (603-964-5414, fullergardens.org) in North Hampton take pride in being one of the last working formal estate gardens of the early 20th century, with formal rose gardens designed in the Colonial Revival style and commissioned during the late 1920s by Massachusetts Governor Alvan T. Fuller, who summered here. Theres food available right at the garden, too, at the Farmer and the Fork Cafe. The mission of Dinosaur State Parks Arboretum of Evolution (860-529-8423. No matter where in the state youre visiting, youll find a great botanical garden nearby. It was established in 1872. The property is especially well known for its exotic trees many from Europe, China, and Japan and other hard to find plants.

Opens Memorial Day Weekend, $5 adults; free for kids under 16. While there, youll truly feel like youre in another world. Green Animals Topiary Garden, 380 Corys Lane, Portsmouth, R.I. www.newportmansions.org.

$15 adults; $12 seniors and students; kids under 12 free .

Below are all of the best botanical gardens in Massachusetts! Located in Northampton, The Botanic Garden of Smith College is one of the top botanical gardens in Massachusetts. This is the most northern and oldest topiary garden in the United States, started just after 1900. The gardens host art and sculpture exhibits throughout the season, as well as a program in horticultural therapy, a multisensory healing experience held in the Lerner Garden of the Five Senses, meant to let guests experience firsthand how plants and garden activities can improves their lives.

In Shelburne, the Shelburne Museums 20 lavish gardens feature lilacs, peonies (more than 700 in 25 varieties), daylilies, and an heirloom vegetable garden, as well as flowering fruit trees, all of which sprout among decorative garden ornamentation (802-985-3346.

Last but not least is the Boston Public Garden! Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, The Fells (603-763-4789. Open year round.

Sadly I have never been to your neck of the woods in person, so I depend on Yankee to show me its beauty and interesting history.

Located just outside of downtown Boston on the former grounds of the Boston State Hospital, the Boston Nature Center (BNC) is a community-based urb the Best Things-To-Do and Places To Go around you. is one of the top botanical gardens in Massachusetts.

Amy is also blogger/founder at Two Drifters, where she writes alongside her husband about romantic and couples travel, relationships, honeymoons, and more. A super fun way to explore the gardens is to go on a guided tour. But the perennial favorite is the gardens signature field of 25,000 daffodils, which come into bloom in late April. The Boston Public Garden was created in 1837 (the Boston Common in 1634) and features flowers, plants, monuments, fountains, the Lagoon, and the Swan Boats that have been operating for more than 100 years. In Stamford, the Bartlett Arboretum & Gardens (203-322-6971, bartlettarboretum.org), open year round, puts an emphasis on education with hyper-specialized tours of pollinator plants and trees, for example, or one aimed at teaching guests about the effects of weather and erosion as well as classes that include plant identification, professional landscaping, and master gardening. In the past, theyve even hosted Bulb Shows with landscape curators, which can be a super unique way to learn more about plants and how they connect with problems in our world. Local researchers discovered new ways of creating hybrids and propagating plants during their time in the Public Garden. The late Polly Hill grew thousands of woody plants from seeds and kept meticulous records for half a lifetime on 20 acres of this former farm, creating an arboretum in the process.

Open year round. Shouldnt Heritage Museums & Gardens in Sandwich, Mass.

$15 adults; Kids 12 and under free. Naumkeag, 5 Prospect Hill Road, Stockbridge. Its in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood and is a welcome break from the city of Boston.

Luckily, there are so many beautiful botanical gardens in Massachusetts to do just that! Some 125 varieties of roses bloom starting in late June.

The headquarters for Native Plant Trust (formerly the New England Wild Flower Society) is a 45-acre property that holds the Northeasts largest landscaped collection of native wildflowers and woody plants. The Acton Arboretum is definitely one of the lesser-known Massachusetts botanical gardens, making it a bit more of a hidden gem. Right in Framingham is one of the best botanical gardens in Massachusetts.

Guided public tours are available every day but Sunday. 413-298-3239. www.thetrustees.org. The significance of the Case Estates Area to Weston, and the region, derives principally from the horticultural activities of Marian At Drumlin Farm, you can experience life on a working farm and explore a wildlife sanctuary at the same time. Hunnewell Arboretum, several natural habitats afford views of a dwarf conifer garden, a maple swamp, and more. The quirky Vermont Experimental Cold-Hardy Cactus Garden (802-388-3268) in Middlebury, a tiny amateur garden for cactus and succulents, makes for a fun pit stop. Before making your travel plans, please check the latest visitors information forindividual businesses and attractions by going to their websites or contacting them directly. Gardens include a heather bed that contains 20 varieties of heather, a rock garden where lichen-speckled rocks are shrouded by azaleas and Japanese iris, and the Perennial Border, a bed of early-to-late summer flowers like iris, delphinium, hollyhocks, and phlox set alongside a 100-foot-long stone wall built in 1926. This spring, Tower Hill will debut more colorful planting beds throughout, including an expanded succulent collection, as well as new flowers along their trail system to encourage meandering for hours. It lasts about 90 minutes and includes seasonal highlights with a tour guide who knows almost everything there is to know about plants and the garden. If youre anywhere in western Massachusetts, this is one that you wont want to miss out on because its so well kept! As the name suggests, this is a butterfly botanical garden located indoors. In Stamford, the Bartlett Arboretum & Gardens (203-322-6971. Swan boat rides: $3 adults; $2 seniors; $1.50 kids age 2 to 15. Highlights include extensive lilac, chestnut, and conifer collections as well as a collection of heritage apple trees. These eight New England arboretums and botanical gardens offer the perfect nature escape.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, The Fells (603-763-4789, thefells.org) in Newbury was the early 20th-century summer estate of diplomat John Milton Hay, who served as a private secretary to Abraham Lincoln and as secretary of state under Presidents William McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt. There are more than one hundred acres to explore, and there are also museums located right on-site if you also want to learn a bit while visiting.

That makes botanical gardens even more special.

There are also occasional events held at the botanic garden throughout the year! Some of them are located at colleges, while others are found in small towns or even in Boston. Heritage Museum and Gardens, 67 Grove St., Sandwich. 617-723-8144. www.cityofboston.gov. But there are also lovely things growing outside, amid grounds that include a winter garden, perennial display gardens, and a rose maze. Plan to spend an afternoon in mild weather. Open all year, the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University is open from sun up to sun down every day of the year. Right in Framingham is one of the best botanical gardens in Massachusetts, Garden in the Woods. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. If youre in the area, be sure to explore the Berkshires and the garden itself.

They are great options to visit, though if you just want to relax! Plants from around the world, like the monkey puzzle tree, set among stone walls, meadows, and fields, keep a primary focus on the floras of Marthas Vineyard (including Hills famous North Tisbury azaleas), the Atlantic coastal plain, and eastern Asia. The Botanic Garden at Smith College, 16 College Lane Northampton. 508-869-6111. www.towerhillbg.org. Send comments to, Black News Hour presented by The Boston Globe.

Significance Location: 809 State Rd, West Tisbury, MA 02575. Blithewold Mansion, 101 Ferry Road Bristol, R.I. 401-253-2707. www.blithwold.org. Overlooking Narragansett Bay, its a family favorite for its 7 acres featuring 80 trees and shrubs shaped like animals, birds, and geometric figures from varieties that include English boxwood, yew, and California privet, as well as for its picturesque, and fully functional, vegetable garden. They sell special hatching kits for butterflies, so you can learn how butterflies hatch on your own. Similar to other New England botanical gardens, its only open seasonally, so be sure to plan your trip wisely if you wish to visit it.

Just visit during their opening hours, and youll be able to walk through the garden and take in the beauty.

Location: 67 Grove St, Sandwich, MA 02563. It leads guests right along the hosta, herb, and butterfly gardens. The gardens at Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, N.H., range from a raised bed of 17th-century kitchen vegetables to an orchard of heritage fruit trees and a WWII era Victory Garden.

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best botanical gardens in new england