Gardens visited
Lily pond in Monet’s garden at Giverny, France
Australia
Adelaide Botanic Gardens, South Australia (photos below)
Adelaide Botanic Garden opened to the public on 4 October 1857. Since then there have been eight directors, the construction and demolition of many buildings, and constant additions to the living collections. Take time to explore the beauty and diversity of plants from across Australia and around the world. Spend an hour or spend the day among the 50 hectares of magnificently maintained gardens and stunning architecture. Relax in the shade or enjoy a coffee among some of Australia’s finest plant collections.
Australian Garden at Cranbourne, Melbourne, Vic (photos below)
Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne offers a natural bushland experience as well as the Australian Garden, an award-winning, contemporary botanic garden celebrating the beauty and diversity of Australian landscapes and flora and featuring over 100,000 plants from 1,900 plant varieties. Completed in October 2012, the Australian Garden was transformed from a sand mine and scrub to a botanic garden of international standing. Designed by Victorian landscape architects, T.C.L. the Australian Garden aims to show visitors the diversity, beauty and functionality of Australian native plants.
Australian National Botanic Garden, Canberra
The Australian National Botanic Gardens, 90 hectares in area, maintains a scientific collection of native plants from all parts of Australia. The plants are displayed for the enjoyment and education of visitors and are used for research into plant classification and biology. A herbarium of preserved plant specimens is closely associated with the living collection. . In October 1970 the Gardens were officially opened by the Prime Minister, John Gorton.
Ballarat Botanical Gardens, Ballarat, Vic (photos below)
The Ballarat Botanical Gardens Reserve covers an area of 40 hectares which is divided into three distinct zones. The central Botanical Gardens reserve is in the 'gardenesque' style of the Victorian pleasure garden. On either side there are open parkland buffers known as the North and South Gardens. The Gardens celebrated its sesquicentenary (150 years old) in 2007.
Blue Mountains Botanical Gardens, Mount Tomah (photos below)
Brisbane Botanic Gardens, Mt. Coot-tha
Founded in 1970 and officially opened in 1976, the 56-hectare gardens
Cloudehill, Dandenongs, Melbourne (photos below)
Cloudehill is a stunning cool climate garden, altitude 580m, spread over 5 acres, opened in 1992. From formal clipped hedges and topiary, through to the comparatively relaxed bulb meadows, Cloudehill provides year round inspiration for the cool climate gardener. Cloudehill has been developed by Jeremy Francis from an historic ‘working garden’ on a property pioneered originally by George Woolrich and the famous Woolrich family, back in the 1890s.
Cooktown Botanic Gardens, Queensland (photos below)
The Cooktown Botanic Gardens were established in 1878 making them one of Queensland's oldest regional botanic gardens. The Gardens are located within the 62 hectare Gallop Botanic Reserve, situated 1.5km from the centre of Cooktown.
Everglades, Leura, NSW
Everglades, 5.2 hectares (13 acres), owned by National Trust of Australia, is a heritage-listed former residence, art gallery, cafe and garden and now tourist destination, house museum and garden in the Blue Mountains.
Flecker Botanic Gardens, Cairns, Queensland
Flecker Botanic Gardens is a heritage-listed botanic garden at Edge Hill, Queensland. The gardens were built from 1886 to 1960s and established 2007, now known as Cairns Botanic Gardens, and also known as Edge Hill Nursery, and Fitzalan's Botanical Gardens.
Garden Vineyard, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria
Tranquil garden where the visitor passes through European ‘rooms’, such as a walled courtyard, a large perennial border and a formal area flanked by clipped Lilly Pillys to a a garden planted exclusively with Australian natives. Featured by Monty Don in his book ‘Around the World in Eighty Gardens’.
Grevillea Park, Bulli, NSW (photos below)
During the mid 80's the need for a permanent park to house the wild sourced Grevillea plants collected and grown in pots by the Grevillea Study Group of the Australian Native Plants Society. The Sydney and Canberra Botanic Gardens became interested in the valuable scientific collection and an approach was made to Wollongong City Council to secure a lease over land owned by the Council. Park Manager, Ray Brown, then designed the layout of the park and undertook the daunting construction task of building the infrastructure for the 2.4ha park that you see today - a most impressive achievement! In 2022 the Park become a Botanic Garden.
Heronswood Gardens, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria (photos below)
Heronswood is the home of The Diggers Foundation, a living catalogue of garden treasures showcasing all that can be found in Diggers Club magazines and books. At the heart of Heronswood is a cottage garden of meandering paths and lawns, combining edible and ornamental plantings. Australia’s first certified organic open garden, it is the place to learn about sustainable practices and the preservation of heirloom flowers and vegetables. Heronswood is a working garden for gardeners, with new projects always on the go and ideas to take home to your patch.
Horse Island, Tuross Lake, NSW (photos below)
Horse Island, (owned by the late Trevor Kennedy and Christina Kennedy), is a secluded and private place tucked away on the south coast of NSW, with 10 hectares of Australian native gardens amongst 100 hectares of Forest Red Gums (Eucalyptus teretecormis) and She-Oaks (Casuarina glauca).
Inverawe Botanic Gardens, Hobart (Photos below)
Invarawe is a Tasmanian garden of Australian native plants landscaped along traditional lines. In 2001 there were 22 acres of weeds, now a sustainable garden with water-wise plants, low maintenance and very little in the way of fertilisers. Plants are in bloom 12 months of the year.
Kingston Wetlands, Hobart (Photos below)
The Kingston Stormwater Wetlands are located near where Whitewater Creek and Browns River intersect, within the urban area of Kingston. The wetlands site is now being used for the collection and treatment of stormwater runoff from Kingston Rivulet and a first flush portion of Whitewater Creek. This has reduced a significant source of faecal contamination entering Browns River near its mouth at Kingston Beach and resulted in the evolution of a site that is a key community educational, aesthetic and recreational asset.
Lambrigg Homestead, Canberra
Lambrigg is an historical property close to Tharwa which is listed by the ACT Heritage Council as a place of historical significance. It was the residence of William James Farrer who made a major contribution to the wheat industry by developing a strain of wheat that was resistant to wheat rust. Lambrigg was the site where Farrer conducted his work on genetic selection for his wheat varieties. In 1949 Jo and Ruth Gullett bought Lambrigg. Both of them had a particular interest in gardening but when they came to Lambrigg there was very little of Farrer's garden remaining because of neglect. However, there were still some almond trees, radiata pines, elms, poplars, a cedar, a hedge, some climbing roses, a flowering apricot and some daffodils. The couple developed the garden over the next forty years and it is now one of the showpiece gardens in Canberra. Ruth was also interested in historic houses and was for some years President of the National Trust. She was awarded an MBE in 1982 for her services to the National Estate
Maranoa Botanic Gardens, Balwyn, Victoria (photos below)
Maranoa Gardens began in the early 1890s, when John Middleton Watson purchased 1.4 hectares in Balwyn, a suburb of Melbourne, for a private garden. He planted many Australian and New Zealand native trees and shrubs and the area was maintained purely as a garden. He named the gardens Maranoa after a river in Queensland, from native words meaning flowing, alive or running. In September 1926, Maranoa Gardens were formally opened to the public.
Mayfield Gardens, Oberon, NSW (photos below taken in 2013)
Two main garden areas - Mayfield Garden and the Hawkins’ Private Family Estate – combine to make-up one of the the largest and most spectacular cool climate gardens in the Southern Hemisphere. Mayfield Garden opens its 15-hectare water garden 363 days of the year, while the Hawkins’ Private Family Garden is an additional 50 hectares in size and is open to visitors four times a year for seasonal festivals. Mayfield is Australia’s largest privately-owned, cool climate garden. It remains a living legacy of the Hawkins family who took much of their inspiration for this project from several of Europe’s most significant horticultural destinations.
Melbourne Flower and Garden Show, Carlton Gardens, Melbourne, Victoria (photos below)
The smell of freshly cut grass and bursting blooms will scent the Melbourne air once again for the Melbourne International Flower & Garden Show presented by Scotts Osmocote in 2024, returning to the heritage listed Royal Exhibition Building and Carlton Gardens over five days. Featuring the best landscape and floral talent from Australia and around the world alongside an extensive array of garden retail products, the Show is a celebration of lifestyle and our great outdoors.
National Arboretum, Canberra (photos below)
The National Arboretum Canberra is a mosaic of living forests and gardens offering breathtaking views, unique experiences, and a world-class entertainment and events hub including the award-winning Margaret Whitlam Pavilion and the popular Village Centre. With over 44,000 rare and endangered trees across a 250-hectare site, the Arboretum is a place of beauty, conservation, science research, education, tourism and recreation.
Olive Pink Botanic Gardens, Alice Springs, NT (photos below)
Olive Pink Botanic Garden is a 16-hectare botanic garden in Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, specialising in plants native to the arid central Australian region.
Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens (photos below)
The Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens cover an area of approximately 14 hectares in Hobart and is Australia’s cool climate garden, with a number of unique collections including Australia’s only Subantarctic Plant House. Established in the early years of the colony, just 2 years after Sydney, it is Australia’s second oldest Botanic Gardens.
Stonefields, Paul Bangay, Daylesford, Victoria (photos below)
This is celebrated landscape designer Paul Bangay's creation, Stonefields, one of Australia's most beautiful country gardens. The book Garden at Stonefields reveals the triumphs and trials of designing and building this extraordinary house and garden--Paul's most challenging and personal project yet.
Tangled Maze and Mistydowns Nursery, Daylesford, Victoria (photo below)
Maze House is located on the Midland Highway ten minutes from Daylesford and ten minutes from Creswick, with an old hedge maze, country carnival games, food garden and milk bar/cafe.
Tasmanian Bushland Garden, Hobart, Tasmania
The Tasmanian Bushland Garden is a free-entry botanical garden and nature reserve northeast of Hobart, located in a peaceful rural setting beside the Tasmanian Highway. Footpaths meander through Display Gardens and a Memorial Garden featuring the native plants of seat east Tasmania, with interpretive signage. There are also walking tracks through the 20 hectares of bushland with scenic views and abundant birdlife. The gardens have been established by a group of passionate volunteers, using donations and grants, so that visitors may enjoy a break, reconnect with nature, and learn something of our wonderful native flora.
Terra Australis Garden, National Arboretum, Canberra (Photos below)
The Terra Australis Garden, designed by Lawrie Smith, was developed by the Australian Native Plants Society (ANPSA), as a stylised representation of the Australian geography and its diverse flora. The garden celebrates the varying Australian landscape through landform, rock form, and plant species, to showcase a more formal garden using native plants.
The design encapsulates the basic form of the Australian continent; featuring a cascading rock pond, small ephemeral salt lake, central rock formation representative of the Great Dividing Range, and an extensive range of new Australian native cultivars.
The regions represented include:
Tropical Coast and Hinterland
Subtropical Coast and Hinterland
Temperate Coast and Hinterland
Temperate Montane
Southwest Western Australia Coast and Sandplains and
Outback
The Australian Botanic Garden, Mount Annan (photos below)
The Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan was officially opened by the Duke and Duchess of York on 2 October 1988 as New South Wales' final Bicentennial project. Showcasing approximately 4000 species of Australian native plants, the garden is part of the Royal Botanic Garden and Domain Trust and home to the Australian PlantBank, a major scientific research and conservation centre for the flora of NSW. The Australian Botanic Garden covers an area of 416 hectares (4,160,000 square metres) and the Garden is home to more than 4000 native and introduced plant species. Originally a farm, the Garden stands on land that was originally part of 3000 acres (12,140,569 square metres or 1214 hectares) that were granted to Magistrate William Howe in 1818. Artwork There are sculptures and artworks spread around the Garden. In the Garden's first years of being open, patronage was around 100,000 people per year. In 2011, the entry fee was abolished and visitation increased significantly. The Garden welcomed 400,000 visitors in 2016.
The Garden Vineyard, Melbourne, Victoria see Garden Vineyard
Wagga Wagga Botanic Gardens, Wagga Wagga NSW
Located at the base of Willans Hill, the Wagga Wagga Botanic Gardens are set over 22 acres. A mini zoo, free flight aviary, children's adventure playground, and rainforest section will keep the kids occupied for hours. Attractions within the gardens include the Tree Chapel and Chinese pavilion. Various garden areas showcase camellias, cacti and succulents, proteas, Australian natives and roses.
Bermuda
Bermuda Botanical Gardens
Bermuda Botanical Gardens features 36 acres of flowers, shrubs, and trees. The Botanical Gardens are in Paget Parish, Bermuda, a short drive from downtown Hamilton. The Bermuda Botanical Gardens also includes Camden, the official residence of Bermuda's Premier, currently Mr. David Burt.
Canada
Jardin Botanique de Montreal, Montreal Canada
On its 75 hectares, the Jardin botanique de Montréal presents a remarkably diverse array of plants to visitors in all season. Explore its beauty through some twenty outdoor gardens and its 10 exhibition greenhouses.
Jardin Botanique Library
With collections including more than 25,000 books, 100 multimedia documents, 300 videos, 32,000 brochures, 55,000 volumes of periodicals and 500 current periodical titles, ours is one of the largest horticulture, botany and landscaping documentation centres in Canada.
Ireland
Mount Stewart, Greyabbey (photos below)
Mount Stewart is a 19th-century house and garden in County Down, Northern Ireland, owned by the National Trust, situated on the east shore of Strangford Lough, near Greyabbey. The 7th Marchioness, Lady Edith, redesigned the gardens in a lavish style that took advantage of the sub-tropical local climate. The present-day estate of Mount Stewart extends to 950 acres (380 ha) with a large lake and many monuments and farm buildings.
Powerscourt House and Gardens, Enniskerry
Powerscourt Estate, located in Enniskerry, County Wicklow, is a large country estate which is noted for its house and landscaped gardens, today occupying 19 hectares.
Scotland
Inverewe Garden, Scottish Highlands
Inverewe Garden is a botanical garden in Wester Ross in the Scottish Highlands. It is located just to the north of Poolewe in Wester Ross, and is noted for the breadth of its collection. The garden was created from barren land in 1862 by Osgood Mackenzie on the 850-hectare estate bought for him by his mother.
Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh
The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, opened in 1670, is a scientific centre for the study of plants, their diversity and conservation, as well as a popular tourist attraction.
Stirling Castle, Stirling
Stirling Castle, located in Stirling, is one of the largest and most important castles in Scotland, both historically and architecturally. The castle sits atop an intrusive crag, which forms part of the Stirling Sill geological formation.
Morocco
Jardin Majorelle, Marrakesh
The Majorelle Garden is a one hectare botanical garden and artist's landscape garden in Marrakech, Morocco. It was created by the French Orientalist artist Jacques Majorelle over almost forty years, starting in 1923, and features a Cubist villa designed by the French architect, Paul Sinoir in the 1930s.
Wales
Bodnant Garden, Tal-y-Cafn
Bodnant Garden is a National Trust property near Tal-y-Cafn, Conwy, overlooking the Conwy Valley towards the Carneddau mountains. Founded in 1874 and developed by five generations of one family, it was given to the National Trust in 1949.
USA
Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, Tucson, AZ
The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is a 98-acre zoo, aquarium, botanical garden, natural history museum, publisher, and art gallery founded in 1952. Located just west of Tucson, Arizona, it features two miles of walking paths traversing 21 acres of desert landscape.
Arnold Arboretum, Boston, MA
The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, 107 ha, is a botanical research institution and free public park, located in Boston, Massachusetts. Established in 1872, it is the oldest public arboretum in North America.
Atlanta Botanical Garden, Atlanta, GA
The Atlanta Botanical Garden is a 30 acre botanical garden located adjacent to Piedmont Park in Midtown Atlanta, Georgia. Incorporated in 1976, the garden's mission is to "develop and maintain plant collections for the purposes of display, education, conservation, research and enjoyment
Audubon Park and Zoological Gardens, New Orleans, LA
For more than a century, Audubon Park ,seated in historic uptown New Orleans, has been an urban oasis, with allées of ancient live oaks, a tranquil 1.8-mile jogging path, a lagoon, picnic shelters, and playgrounds. Audubon Park is open to the public and also features tennis courts, riding stables, soccer fields, the Whitney Young Pool, Audubon Clubhouse Café and Audubon Golf Club.
Battery and White Point Gardens, Charleston, SC
White Point Garden is a 5.7 acre public park located at the tip of the peninsula in Charleston. It is the southern terminus for the Battery, a defensive seawall and promenade.
Bayard Cutting Arboretum, Oakdale, NY
Bayard Cutting Arboretum State Park is a 691-acre (2.80 km2) state park located on Long Island. The park includes an arboretum designed by Frederick Law Olmsted for William Bayard Cutting in 1886, as well as a mansion designed by Charles C. Haight. Today Bayard Cutting Arboretum State Park is one of the last remaining estates on the South Shore of Long Island.
Birmingham Botanical Garden, Birmingham AL 3159, 3162, 3163, 3172, 3179, 3182
The Birmingham Botanical Gardens is 67.5-acre (27.3 ha) of botanical gardens which are home to over 12,000 different types of plants, 25 unique gardens, more than 30 works of original outdoor sculpture, and several miles of walking paths. With more than 350,000 annual visitors, the Birmingham Botanical Gardens qualify as one of Alabama's top free-admittance tourist attractions.
The gardens include a garden center that has a library (the largest public horticulture library in the U.S.), auditorium, Linn-Henley Lecture Hall, Blount Education Center, Gerlach Plant Information Center, Alabama Cooperative Extension System office, Arrington Children's Plant Adventure Zone, and a restaurant.
Boone Hall Plantation. Mt. Pleasant, SC
Boone Hall Plantation is a historic district located in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The plantation is one of America's oldest plantations still in operation. Boone Hall Plantation was founded in 1681 when Englishman Major John Boone came to Charleston and established a lucrative plantation and gracious home on the banks of Wampacheone Creek. The family and descendants of Major Boone were influential in the history of South Carolina, the colonies and the nation. In 1743, the son of Major John Boone planted live oak trees, arranging them in two evenly spaced rows. This spectacular approach to his home symbolizes southern heritage and will take root in your memory for many years to come. It would take two centuries for the massive, moss-draped branches to meet overhead, forming today’s natural corridor.
Botanic Garden of Smith College, Northhampton MA
The Botanic Garden of Smith College was founded over one hundred years ago by Laurenus Clarke Seelye, the College's first president, with the hope that the whole campus could be developed as a botanic garden so that it might be of scientific as well as aesthetic value. The landscape architecture firm of Frederick Law Olmsted, of Central Park fame, was enlisted to create that plan. Today the Botanic Garden serves as a living museum of plants native to New England and ecosystems around the globe. The Garden encompasses the 12,000 square foot Lyman Conservatory and Church Exhibition Gallery, the campus arboretum, and a variety of specialty gardens, including the Rock Garden, Systematics Garden, Capen Garden, and the Japanese Garden for Reflection and Contemplation. The outdoor gardens and greenhouses are open to the public year-round.
Boyce Thompson Arboretum, Superior AZ
With the addition of the Wallace Desert Garden, Boyce Thompson Arboretum (BTA) now holds collections of desert plants from the United States, Mexico, Australia, Madagascar, India, China, Japan, Israel, South America, the Middle East, Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Arabian Peninsula—all told 4,025 taxa and 20,000 plants within 135 acres of gardens. Situated on 372 acres of scenic upland Sonoran Desert with nearly five miles of trails, BTA is Arizona’s oldest and largest botanical garden and one of Arizona’s top tourism sites.
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Brooklyn NY
Brooklyn Botanic Garden is in the borough of Brooklyn, New York City. It was founded in 1910 using land from Mount Prospect Park in central Brooklyn, adjacent to Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Museum. The 52-acre garden holds over 14,000 taxa of plants and has nearly a million visitors each year.
Central Park, New York, NY
Central Park, established in 1858, is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the fifth-largest park in the city, covering 843 acres.
Conservatory Garden, Central Park, New York, NY
A destination for neighborhood residents and visitors from all over the world, its six acres are well-known for plantings of tulips, lilacs, crabapple trees, summer perennials, and chrysanthemums. Its more formal design and specular floral displays have also made it a popular destination for small weddings.
The Garden opened in 1937 and is named for the glass conservatory that was built at this location in 1899 to offer seasonal plant displays to the public. Even earlier, this area had a horticultural function—it housed a large greenhouse designed by Park co-designer Calvert Vaux for growing plants for the Park’s landscapes.
Chicago Botanic Garden, Chicago IL
The Chicago Botanic Garden is a 385-acre (156 ha) living plant museum situated on nine islands in the Cook County Forest Preserves. It features 27 display gardens in four natural habitats: McDonald Woods, Dixon Prairie, Skokie River Corridor, and Lakes and Shores. The garden is open every day of the year.
The Chicago Botanic Garden is owned by the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, and managed by the Chicago Horticultural Society. It opened to the public in 1972, and is home to the Joseph Regenstein Jr. School of the Chicago Botanic Garden, offering a number of classes and certificate programs.
Colonial Williamsburg, Williamsburg, VA
Colonial Williamsburg is a living-history museum and private foundation presenting a part of the historic district in the city of Williamsburg, Virginia. Its 301-acre (122 ha) historic area includes several hundred restored or recreated buildings from the 18th century, when the city was the capital of the Colony of Virginia.
Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is a member-supported unit of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, which studies birds and other wildlife. It is housed in the Imogene Powers Johnson Center for Birds and Biodiversity in Sapsucker Woods Sanctuary. Approximately 250 scientists, professors, staff, and students work in a variety of programs devoted to the Lab's mission: interpreting and conserving the Earth's biological diversity through research, education, and citizen science focused on birds The 226-acre (0.91 km2) Sapsucker Woods Sanctuary contains more than four miles (6 km) of trails taking visitors around Sapsucker Pond, on boardwalks, through wetlands and forest. More than 230 species of birds have been recorded in the sanctuary.
Cornell Botanic Gardens, Ithaca, NY
Cornell Botanic Gardens are located adjacent to the Cornell University campus in Ithaca, New York. The Botanic Gardens proper consist of 25 acres (10 ha) of botanical gardens and 150 acres (61 ha) of the F. R. Newman Arboretum. The greater Botanic Gardens includes 40 different nature areas around Cornell and Ithaca, covering 4,300 acres (1,700 ha).
Cypress Gardens, FL
Cypress Gardens was a botanical garden and theme park near Winter Haven, Florida that operated from 1936 to 2009. As of 2011, the botanical garden portion has been preserved inside the newly formed Legoland Florida.
Denver Botanic Gardens, Denver, CO
The Denver Botanic Gardens, opened in 1951, is a public botanical garden located in the Cheesman Park neighborhood of Denver, Colorado. The 23-acre park contains a conservatory, a variety of theme gardens and a sunken amphitheater, which hosts various concerts in the summer.
Desert Botanical Garden, Phoenix, AZ
Desert Botanical Garden, established in 1939, is a 140-acre botanical garden located in Papago Park, in Phoenix, central Arizona, with 50,000 plants from 5,000 species.
Donald M. Kendall Sculpture Gardens, Pepsico, Purchase, NY
The Donald M. Kendall Sculpture Gardens is a collection of 45 pieces of outdoor sculpture at the PepsiCo world headquarters in Purchase, New York. The collection includes work from major modern sculptors including Auguste Rodin, Henry Moore, Alexander Calder, and Alberto Giacometti.
Duke Gardens, Somerville, NJ
Duke Farms, over 1.000 acres, is an estate that was established by James Buchanan Duke, an American entrepreneur who founded Duke Power and the American Tobacco Company. Located in Hillsborough, New Jersey, the property is managed by the Doris Duke Foundation after the death of Doris Duke, James B. Duke's daughter and the second owner.
Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC
In 1920, after a long and careful search, Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss found their ideal country house and garden within Washington, DC. They eventually purchased a fifty-three-acre property, described as an old-fashioned house standing in rather neglected grounds, at the highest point of Georgetown. Within a year, the Blisses hired landscape gardener Beatrix Farrand to design the garden. Working in happy and close collaboration for almost thirty years, Mildred Bliss and Beatrix Farrand planned every garden detail, each terrace, bench, urn, and border. The upper sixteen acres were transferred to Harvard University in 1940 to establish a research institute for Byzantine Studies, Pre-Columbian Studies, and Garden and Landscape Studies.
Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, Coral Gables, FL
Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden is an 83-acre botanic garden, opened in 1938, with extensive collections of rare tropical plants including palms, cycads, flowering trees, and vines. It is located in the city of Coral Gables, Miami-Dade County, just south of Miami. Fairchild gets its name from one of the most famous plant explorers in history, David Fairchild (1869-1954). Dr. Fairchild was known for traveling the world in search of useful plants, but he was also an educator and a renowned scientist. At the age of 22, he created the Section of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction of the United States Department of Agriculture, and for the next 37 years, he traveled the world in search of plants of potential use to the American people.
Fallingwater, Mill Run, PA
Fallingwater is a house designed in 1935 by renowned American architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) for the Kaufmann family, owners of Pittsburgh’s largest department store. Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater is one of his most widely acclaimed works and best exemplifies his philosophy of organic architecture: the harmonious union of art and nature.
Fallingwater is located in the mountains of Southwestern Pennsylvania, also known as the Laurel Highlands, in Mill Run, which is about 70 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. Wright designed Fallingwater to rise above the waterfall over which it is built. Local craftsmen quarried native sandstone and other materials from the property and completed the construction of the main house, guest house and service wing in 1939.
Filoli, Woodside CA
Filoli, also known as the Bourn-Roth Estate, is a country house set in 16 acres of formal gardens surrounded by a 654-acre estate, located in Woodside, California, about 25 miles south of San Francisco, at the southern end of Crystal Springs Reservoir, on the eastern slope of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Head gardener Louis Mariconi lived and worked at Filoli from 1915 until his death in 1965. He is shown in the Garden with Bella Worn, an innovative horticulturist who worked in tandem with landscape designer Bruce Porter to create Filoli’s Garden.
Foster Botanical Gardens, Honolulu HI
Foster Botanical Gardens, founded 1853, is one of five public botanical gardens on Oahu. It is located at 50 North Vineyard Boulevard, Honolulu, near Chinatown. As the oldest of the Honolulu Botanical Gardens, Foster Gardens displays a mature and impressive collection of tropical plants. Some of the magnificent trees in this 14-acre garden were planted in the 1850s by Dr. William Hillebrand. They marked the beginning of a heritage that became The Honolulu Botanical Gardens.
Frick Collection Courtyard Gardens. New York, NY
The Garden Court, at the heart of the museum, was designed by John Russell Pope for the museum's opening in 1935 to replace the open carriage court of the original Frick residence. The Court's paired Ionic columns and symmetrical planting beds were echoed in Pope's later designs for the original building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
Gunston Hall. Mason Neck, VA
Gunston Hall is an 18th-century Georgian mansion near the Potomac River in Mason Neck, Virginia. Built between 1755 and 1759 as the main residence and headquarters of a 5,500-acre plantation, the house was the home of the United States Founding Father George Mason.
Holden Arboretum, Newark, OH
The Holden Arboretum, in Kirtland, Ohio, is one of the largest arboreta and botanical gardens in the United States, with more than 3,600 acres, including 600 acres devoted to collections and gardens. Diverse natural areas and ecologically sensitive habitats make up the rest of the holdings.
Ho’omalihia Gardens, Hawaii
The Hoʻomaluhia Botanical Gardens are located at 45–680 Luluku Road, Kāne'ohe, Oahu, Hawaii. It is part of the Honolulu Botanical Gardens, and is open daily. These lush 400 acres in windward Oʻahu is rightfully named "a peaceful refuge." Opened in 1982, this garden in Kāneʻohe features plantings from major tropical regions around the world grouped geographically. Geographical regions represented by our botanical collections: Philippines, Malaysia, Tropical America, India & Sri Lanka, Melanesia, Hawaii, Polynesia, and Africa. The Garden was designed and built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to provide flood protection for Kāneʻohe.
Huntington Botanical Gardens, San Marino, CA
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, known as The Huntington, is a collections-based educational and research institution established by Henry E. Huntington and Arabella Huntington in San Marino, California, The 29 unique, themed gardens and glass conservatory on a 37-acre urban oasis offers 4 miles of trails that lead to ocean views and through celebrated gardens including the largest children’s garden on the West Coast and North America’s largest public bamboo collection. The topography provides a wide variety of microclimates supporting a diversity of habitats. Visitors can stroll through a lush tropical rainforest with a waterfall before hiking into desert gardens. Along the way, flowering trees, restful vistas, a canyon with dozens of majestic palms, and a natural areas with native plants await.
International Peace Garden, Dunseith, ND
Dr. Henry J. Moore of Islington, Ontario conceived the idea of a garden on an international border where people could share interests and celebrate friendship in 1928. A year later, he proposed the idea and the National Association of Gardeners who approved the plan for the International Peace Garden. The group decided that the site for the garden should be near the geographical center of North America, and approved the current site with a dedication on July 14, 1932. 50,000 individuals traveled from all over the United States and Canada to witness the groundbreaking and dedication ceremony.
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts, which houses significant examples of European, Asian, and American art. Its collection includes paintings, sculpture, tapestries, and decorative arts. Gardner chose to site her Museum on the edge of the newly built Back Bay Fens, a part of Frederick Law Olmsted’s Emerald Necklace, because she saw the potential for this new landscape to enable, inform, and enhance the city of Boston. Today the Museum continues to recognize the importance of landscape architecture through its landscape department, landscape lectures, and landscape exhibitions
J. Paul Getty Villa, Los Angeles, CA
The Getty Villa is at the easterly end of the Malibu coast in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, California and consists of Greek and Roman antiquities housed in a re-created Roman country home set in tranquil gardens.
Jacob Javits Plaza, New York, NY
The US GSA hired WASA/Studio A in collaboration with Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, landscape architects, to redesign the plaza facing Foley Square at the east side of the 26 Federal Plaza FOB. Framed to the north by the Court of International Trade, this civic space had leaked into the underground parking garage for decades. Gestural, sweeping landforms fold over the plinth of the Federal Office Building and link the project to its urban context. A grand, granite stair emerges from the rolling landforms to create an amenity that invites the public into the plan. The material selection and pavement pattern, in concert with a range of landscape spaces, facilitate the transition from the enormity of the Federal Office Building to the intimate scale of the plan’s internal gardens. The plan spaces are enlivened through the interplay of four seating options: wide marble benches, in both rectangles and circles, reference the scale of the surrounding architecture and provide generous and flexible seating; crescent marble benches follow the edge of planted areas to create intimate spaces; and black granite benches, nestled between the columns of the Federal Building, negate the need for temporary barriers. A close study of microclimaric conditions and user comfort informs decisions of layout, material and planting. The landforms and trees on the northern portion of the site block winter winds along Worth Street; shade provided by vegetation will be a valued amenity during the summer months when the plaza is in full sun for many hours of the day. To compensate for the shade of winter, a targeted Heliostat directs sunlight to six different locations on the plaza over the course of a day. Additionally, reflectors play a role at night when “moonlight” floods the site.
John P. Humes Japanese Stroll Garden, Mill Neck NY
The John P. Humes Japanese Stroll Garden is a 7-acre Japanese garden in Mill Neck, New York, providing a retreat for passive recreation and contemplation. A Stroll Garden is in the garden style of the Edo period integrating the various styles of pond garden, tea garden, and dry landscape garden. In gardens of this style, different views can be enjoyed one after another by promenading along the path circling a pond.
Koko Crater Botanical Gardens, Oahu HI
The Koko Crater Botanical Garden is a botanical garden located within the Koko Crater on the eastern end of Oahu, Hawaii. It was given the dual title of the Charles M. Wills Cactus Garden by the Honolulu Department of Parks and Recreation, in recognition of his contributions to the garden, in 1966. In 1958, Koko Crater on the eastern side of O`ahu was set aside for development into a botanical garden. Plant collections occupy sixty acres of the inner slopes and basin of this 200-acre crater. This garden focuses on the cultivation of rare and endangered dryland plants. Xeriscape concepts are used to transform this dry landscape into a garden where plants suitable to desert-like conditions can flourish.
Highlights: Hawaiian plants, African & Madagascan plants, Cactus & Succulent garden, Plumeria grove, Dryland palms
Kykuit, Sleepy Hollow, NY
The Kykuit garden was begun by the oil billionnaire John D. Rockefeller and served as a Rockefeller family summer retreat from 1913 to 1991. Kykuit (pronounced 'cake-8') means 'lookout' in Dutch and it has fine views over the magnificent scenery of the Hudson Valley. Rockefeller commissioned Olmsted Brothers for the design but was not happy with their work and began laying out walks and doing his own planting. He then asked the landscape architect William Welles Bosworth to design the formal gardens near the house. Today, the garden is a fine American example of the Mixed Style. There are terraces, a semicircular rose garden, fountains, the Temple of Aphrodite and a notable collection of modern sculpture (including works by Henry Moore and Pable Picasso). There is a Morning Garden, a Grand Staircase, a Japanese Garden, an Italian Garden, a Temple of Aphrodite, an Italian loggia, and a semicircular rose garden.
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, Austin, TX
The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin is the state botanical garden and arboretum of Texas. The Center features more than 900 species of native Texas plants in both garden and natural settings and is home to a breadth of educational programs and events.
Liliuokalani Botanical Garden, Oahu, HI
The Liliʻuokalani Botanical Garden is a city park and young botanical garden located on North Kuakini Street, Honolulu. It is one of the Honolulu Botanical Gardens, and open daily without charge. Portions of this garden were once the property and favorite picnic grounds of Queen Liliʻuokalani, the last reigning monarch of Hawaii. She later donated her land to the City and County of Honolulu to be used for the public's enjoyment. This developing garden is devoted to native Hawaiian plants.
Longue Vue House and Gardens,New Orleans, LA
Longue Vue House and Gardens, also known as Longue Vue, is a historic house museum and associated gardens in the Lakewood neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana. The former home of Edgar Stern and Edith Rosenwald Stern, the current house is in fact the second on the property. Longue Vue’s eight acres of gardens – and matching residential interiors – were the masterwork of 20th-century landscape designer Ellen Biddle Shipman.
Longwood Gardens, Kennett Square, PA
Explore nearly 200 acres of lush, formal gardens, open meadows, and winding paths to breathtaking Brandywine Valley vistas. Together, mesmerizing displays, feats of engineering, and science-based research and conservation work harmoniously toward the overarching goal to unite and inspire our guests in appreciation of beauty—as only Longwood can. From our humble beginnings as a Quaker farmstead and arboretum, to Pierre S. du Pont’s forward-thinking stewardship, to today’s collection of renowned landscape designers, horticulturists, and architects, our great garden of the world evolves.
Lotusland, Santa Barbara, CA
Ganna Walska Lotusland, also known as Lotusland, 37 acres, is a non-profit botanical garden located in Montecito, near Santa Barbara, California. The garden is the historic estate of Madame Ganna Walska, featuring cacti, succulents, an Australian garden, ferns, bromeliads, a parterre, aloes and many other special gardens.
Magnolia Plantation and Gardens, Charleston, SC
Magnolia Plantation and Garden, 390 acres, built in 1850, is a historic house with gardens located on the Ashley River west of Ashley, Charleston County, South Carolina. It is one of the oldest plantations in the South, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, Sarastoa, FL
The Marie Selby Botanical Gardens is a 15-acre botanical garden located in Sarasota, Florida. The Gardens are on the grounds of the former home of Marie and William Selby. Marie Selby Botanical Gardens provides 45 acres of bayfront sanctuaries connecting people with air plants of the world, native nature, and our regional history. Established by forward thinking women of their time, Selby Gardens is composed of the 15-acre Downtown Sarasota campus and the 30-acre Historic Spanish Point campus in the Osprey area of Sarasota County, Florida. The Downtown Campus on Sarasota Bay is the only botanical garden in the world dedicated to the display and study of epiphytic orchids, bromeliads, gesneriads, ferns, and other tropical plants. There is a significant focus on botany, horticulture, education, historical preservation, and the environment.
Miami Beach Botanical Garden
The Miami Beach Botanical Garden is a 2.6 acres urban green space in Miami Beach, Florida founded in 1962. It was transformed in 2011 with a $1.2 million landscape renovation designed by South Florida landscape architect Raymond Jungles.
Middleton Place, Charleston, SC
Middleton Place, America’s oldest landscaped garden, is a plantation in Dorchester County, along the banks of the Ashley River about 15 miles northwest of downtown Charleston, South Carolina. The Gardens, which Henry Middleton envisioned and began to create in 1741, reflect the grand classic style that remained in vogue in Europe and England into the early part of the 18th century. The principles of André Le Nôtre, the master of classical garden design who laid out the gardens at Vaux-le-Vicomte and the Palace of Versailles were followed. Rational order, geometry and balance; vistas, focal points and surprises were all part of the garden design. Henry Middleton's original gardens contained walkways or allées, which were planted with trees and shrubs, trimmed to appear as green walls that partitioned off small galleries, green arbors and bowling greens. Sculpture was placed at the end of long vistas and ornamental canals designed with mathematical precision. Changes in elevation and new surprises were created at every turn.
Missouri Botanical Garden, St, Louis, MO
The Missouri Botanical Garden is a botanical garden located in St. Louis, Missouri. It is also known informally as Shaw's Garden for founder and philanthropist Henry Shaw. The Garden is a center for botanical research and science education, as well as an oasis in the city of St. Louis. The Garden offers 79 acres of beautiful horticultural display, including a 14-acre Japanese strolling garden, historic architecture, and one of the world's largest collections of rare and endangered flora
Mohonk Mountain House,New Platz, NY
Founded by the Smiley Family in 1869, this National Historic Landmark Victorian castle resort surrounded by 40,000 acres of pristine forest is nestled in the Hudson Valley, only 90 miles north of New York City.
Monticello, Charlottesville, VA
Monticello was the primary plantation of Thomas Jefferson, a Founding Father and the third president of the United States, who began designing Monticello after inheriting land from his father's will at age 14.
Morton Arboretum, Lisle IL
The Morton Arboretum, in Lisle, Illinois, founded in 1922, 700 acres, is a public garden, and outdoor museum with a library, herbarium, and program in tree research including the Center for Tree Science.
Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, MA
Mount Auburn Cemetery, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is the first rural or garden cemetery in the United States. It is the burial site of many prominent Boston Brahmins, and is a National Historic Landmark. Dedicated in 1831 and set with classical monuments in a rolling landscaped terrain, it marked a distinct break with Colonial-era burying grounds and church-affiliated graveyards. The appearance of this type of landscape coincides with the rising popularity of the term "cemetery," derived from the Greek for "a sleeping place," instead of graveyard. This language and outlook eclipsed the previous harsh view of death and the afterlife embodied by old graveyards and church burial plots.
The 174-acre (70 ha) cemetery is important both for its historical aspects and for its role as an arboretum. It was designated a National Historic Landmark District in 2003 for its pioneering role in 19th-century cemetery development.
Mount Vernon, VA
Mount Vernon is an American landmark and former plantation of Founding Father, commander of the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War, and the first president of the United States George Washington and his wife, Martha. The estate is on the banks of the Potomac River in Fairfax County, Virginia. The Washington family acquired land in the area in 1674. Around 1734, the family embarked on an expansion of its estate that continued under George Washington, who began leasing the estate in 1754 before becoming its sole owner in 1761. The mansion was built of wood in a loose Palladian style; the original house was built by George Washington's father Augustine, around 1734. George Washington expanded the house twice, once in the late 1750s and again in the 1770s. It remained Washington's home for the rest of his life. In 1858, the house's historical importance was recognized and it was taken over by the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association; this organization acquired it together with part of the Washington property estate. The mansion and its surrounding buildings did escape damage from the American Civil War suffered by many properties located within the Confederate States of America. Mount Vernon was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places
Muir Woods, CA (photos below)
Muir Woods National Monument is a United States National Monument managed by the National Park Service, named after naturalist John Muir. It is located on Mount Tamalpais near the Pacific coast, in southwestern Marin County, California. It is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and is 12 miles (19 km) north of San Francisco. It protects 554 acres (224 ha), of which 240 acres (97 ha) are old growth coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) forests, one of a few such stands remaining in the San Francisco Bay Area.
National Arboretum, Washington DC
The United States National Arboretum is an arboretum in northeast Washington, D.C., operated by the United States Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service. It was established in 1927 by an act of Congress after a campaign by USDA Chief Botanist Frederick Vernon Coville. It is 446 acres (1.80 km2) in size and is located 2.2 miles (3.5 km) northeast of the Capitol building. The campus's gardens, collections, and features are connected by roadways that are 9.5 miles (15.3 km) long in total. In addition to the main campus in Washington, D.C., there are research locations at the Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in Beltsville, Maryland and in McMinville, Tennessee.
The Arboretum functions as a major center of botanical research conducted by the USDA, including applied research on trees, shrubs, turf, and the development of new ornamental plants. In addition to a library and a historical collection (archive), the institution also has an extensive herbarium of over 800,000 specimens documenting wild and cultivated plant diversity.
Natural History Museum, Los Angeles County, CA (photos below)
The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County is the largest natural and historical museum in the western United States. Its collections include nearly 35 million specimens and artifacts and cover 4.5 billion years of history. This large collection is comprised not only of specimens for exhibition, but also of vast research collections housed on and offsite. The museum is associated with two other museums in Greater Los Angeles: the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits in Hancock Park and the William S. Hart Ranch and Museum in Newhall. The three museums work together to achieve their common mission: "to inspire wonder, discovery, and responsibility for our natural and cultural worlds. NHM opened in Exposition Park, Los Angeles, California, United States in 1913 as The Museum of History, Science, and Art.
Nemours Gardens, Wilmington, DE
The Nemours Estate is a 200-acre (81 ha) country estate with jardin à la française formal gardens and a French neoclassical mansion in Wilmington, Delaware. Built to resemble a French château, its 105 rooms on four floors occupy nearly 47,000 sq ft (4,400 m2). Nemours was created by Alfred I. du Pont in 1909–10 as a gift for his second wife, Alicia. It was named for the north-central French town of Nemours, which was affiliated with his great-great-grandfather, Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours.
The estate has the most developed and largest jardin à la française (French formal garden)-style landscape park and collection of individual gardens in North America. The design is patterned after the gardens of Versailles surrounding the Petit Trianon at the Château de Versailles. Their central axis extends ⅓ of a mile from the mansion facade, paralleling the main avenue leading to the house. The grounds are beautifully landscaped with plantings, fountains, pools, a carillon tower, statuary, and a pavilion surrounded by naturalized woodlands.
New York Botanical Garden, New York, NY
The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) is a botanical garden in the Bronx, New York City. Established in 1891, it is located on a 250-acre (100 ha) site that contains a landscape with over one million living plants; the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, a greenhouse containing several habitats; and the LuEsther T. Mertz Library, which contains one of the world's largest collections of botany-related texts. As of 2016, over a million people visit the New York Botanical Garden annually. NYBG is also a major educational institution, teaching visitors about plant science, ecology, and healthful eating through NYBG's interactive programming. NYBG operates one of the world's largest plant research and conservation programs.
NYBG was established in 1891 and the first structures on the grounds opened at the end of that decade. Since 1967, the garden has been listed as a National Historic Landmark, and several buildings have been designated as official New York City landmarks.
Newport Mansions, Newport, RI
The Preservation Society of Newport County is a private, non-profit organization based in Newport, Rhode Island. It is Rhode Island's largest and most-visited cultural organization. The organization protects the architectural heritage of Newport County, especially the Bellevue Avenue Historic District. Seven of its 14 historic properties and landscapes are National Historic Landmarks, and most are open to the public. The Preservation Society of Newport County was founded in 1945 by a group of Newport residents led by Katherine and George Warren to save Hunter House from demolition.
North Carolina Botanical Garden, Chapel Hill, NC
The North Carolina Botanical Garden (about 700 acres (2.8 km2), plus 210 acres (0.85 km2) of nature preserves) is a botanical garden operated by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The primary goal of the Garden is to research, catalog, and promote the native plant species of North Carolina. The history of the Garden begins in 1903, when Professor William Chambers Coker began planting trees and shrubs on the central campus (now Coker Arboretum). In 1952, the Trustees of the university dedicated 70 acres (280,000 m2) forested for development of a botanical garden. An additional 103 acres (0.42 km2) were donated by William Lanier Hunt.
Old Westbury Gardens, Long Island, NY
Old Westbury Gardens is the former estate of businessman John Shaffer Phipps (1874–1958), an heir to the Phipps family fortune, in Nassau County, New York. Located in Old Westbury, the property was converted into a museum home in 1959. Work on the estate began in 1903, when John Shaffer Phipps promised his fiancée, Margarita Grace (a daughter of businessman Michael P. Grace), that he would build her a home in the United States that resembled her family's British residence at Battle Abbey in Battle, East Sussex, England. The house was ready in 1906 for Phipps, his wife and their young children.
Westbury House, the Carolean Revival (Charles II style) mansion designed by British designer George A. Crawley with assistance from American architect Grosvenor Atterbury, contains 23 rooms. The grounds cover 160 acres (0.65 km2). The painting of Mrs. Henry Phipps and Her Grandson Winston (1906–07) by John Singer Sargent hangs in the dining room. Winston Guest was the child, and his godfather was Winston Churchill.
Planting Fields Arboretum, Oyster Bay, NY
Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park, which includes the Coe Hall Historic House Museum, is an arboretum and state park covering over 400 acres (160 ha) located in the town of Oyster Bay, New York.
Near the end of America's Gilded Age, the estate named Planting Fields was the home of William Robertson Coe, an insurance and railroad executive, and his wife Mary "Mai" Huttleston (née Rogers) Coe, the youngest daughter of millionaire industrialist Henry H. Rogers, who had been a principal of Standard Oil. It includes the 67-room Coe Hall, greenhouses, gardens, woodland paths, and outstanding plant collections. Its grounds were designed by Guy Lowell, A. R. Sargent, the Olmsted Brothers, and others. Planting Fields also features an herbarium of over 10,000 pressed specimens.
The name "Planting Fields" comes from the Matinecock Indians who cultivated the rich soil in the clearings high above Long Island Sound. Sargent created The Italian Blue Pool Garden between 1914 and 1918, with the Tea House built in 1915 to designs by Guy Lowell. Historically this garden was planted with spring-blooming perennials such as delphiniums, irises, peonies, and poppies. It is currently being restored to this original form.
After the unexpected death of A.R. Sargent in 1918, the Coes appointed the Olmsted Brothers of Brookline, Massachusetts, with James Frederick Dawson as chief landscape architect, who brought their signature "naturalistic" look to the north side of the property. They completed additions to the Main Greenhouse and Camellia Greenhouse, as well as the Beech Copse, Main Lawn, West Lawn and Heather Garden.
The Green Garden features a circular pool. Nearby Azalea Walks and Vista Path show hundreds of varieties of azalea and rhododendron. The Rose Arbor and Rose Garden contain over 680 Tea, shrub, and miniature roses.
The Synoptic Garden displays over 500 types of tree and shrub, arranged in alphabetical order by botanical name. The Magnolia Collection contains over 80 types of deciduous and evergreen magnolia. The Rhododendron Collection shows over 1,000 types of azalea and rhododendron.
The Camellia Greenhouse (Lowell & Sargent, 1917; revised and extended by Olmsted Brothers, 1917–1922)[3] was built specifically to house the camellia collection, originally of 114 full-grown plants; currently the collection consists of over 300 plants. It was James F. Dawson's idea to sink the tubs directly in the ground, rather than trundle them out seasonally, the usual procedure for camellias grown in greenhouses.
The Main Greenhouse (Lowell & Sargent/Olmsted Brothers) was constructed between 1914 and 1929, with a Hibiscus House added in 1929 for the Coes' hibiscus collection. Today, the Main Greenhouse offers large collections of orchids, cacti and succulents, houseplants, ferns and begonias, as well as seasonal displays of chrysanthemum, poinsettia, hydrangea, coleus, etc.
Sonoma Botanical Garden, (formerly Quarryhill Botanical Gardens). Glen Ellen CA Traveling along Highway 12 in Sonoma County’s tranquil Valley of the Moon, most drivers zip past the hidden gem that is Quarryhill Botanical Garden. The unobtrusive entry, tucked between Cabernet Sauvignon vineyards, belies the twenty-acre garden inside that holds a treasure trove of plants. Adjacent to Sonoma Land Trust-protected lands and the Bouverie Audubon Preserve, this verdant garden is not only a world-class botanic garden, it is internationally recognized as home to one of the largest collections of scientifically documented, wild-sourced Asian plants in the Western World.
The Asian garden is primarily species from temperate China, Japan and the Himalayas, with more than 90 percent of its species grown from wild-collected, scientifically documented seed. The collection includes rare varieties such as Acer pentaphyllum, Cornus capitata, Holboellia coriacea, Illicium simonsii, and Rosa chinensis var. spontanea, all native to Sichuan. It also has many Asian dogwoods, lilies, magnolias, maples, oaks, roses, and rhododendrons.
The Sonoma Botanical Garden property was originally a sandstone quarry that previously produced road foundation stone. The quarry became inactive circa 1902. In 2000, the garden opened to the general public (previously open only to private tours). In 2003, the garden developed a multi-institutional online database (DAPC) to share information about the rare and endangered Asian plants both at the garden and in the larger botanical community. In 2017, the Nuns fire burned three sides of adjacent property to the garden. Aside from a few scorched fenceposts and lost vines, the garden was unscathed. In 2021, Quarryhill Botanical Garden became Sonoma Botanical Garden and expanded its mission to include California native plants.
Queens Botanical Gardens, Flushing, NY
Queens Botanical Garden is a botanical garden located in Flushing, Queens, New York City. The 39-acre (16 ha) site features rose, bee, herb, wedding, and perennial gardens; an arboretum; an art gallery; and a LEED-certified Visitor & Administration Building. Queens Botanical Garden is located on property owned by the City of New York, and is funded from several public and private sources. It is operated by Queens Botanical Garden Society, Inc.
Queens Botanical Garden was created as part of the 1939 New York World's Fair and was originally located in nearby Flushing Meadows–Corona Park. It moved to its current location, a landfilled area east of Flushing Meadows Park, in 1963 in preparation for the 1964 New York World's Fair. Since then, the Queens Botanical Garden has continued to expand, with programming targeted at residents of surrounding community.
Rock Creek Park, Washington, DC
Rock Creek Park is a large urban park that bisects the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C. The park was created by an Act of Congress in 1890 and today is administered by the National Park Service.
Royal Hawaiian Hotel, Honolulu HI
The Royal Hawaiian Hotel is a beachfront luxury hotel located in Waikiki in Honolulu, Hawaii, on the island of Oahu. One of the first hotels established in Waikiki, the Royal Hawaiian is considered one of the most luxurious and famous hotels in Hawaiian tourism, and in its 95-year history has been host to numerous celebrities and world dignitaries. The bright pink hue of its concrete stucco façade with its Spanish/Moorish styled architecture and prominent location on the wide sandy beach have earned it the alliterative nickname of "The Pink Palace of the Pacific".
Ruth Bancroft Garden, Walnut Creek, CA (Photos below)
The Ruth Bancroft Garden is a 2.5-acre (1.0 ha) dry garden established by Ruth Bancroft. It contains more than 2,000 cactus, succulents, trees, and shrubs native to California, Mexico, Chile, South Africa, and Australia. It is located in Walnut Creek, California. The Garden began in the early 1950s as Ruth Bancroft's private collection of potted plants within Bancroft Farm, a 400-acre (160 ha) property bought by publisher Hubert Howe Bancroft (grandfather of Ruth's husband Philip) in the 1880s as an orchard for pears and walnuts. In the 1950s, Bancroft brought home a single succulent, an Aeonium grown by plant breeder Glenn Davidson. By 1972, the collection was moved to its current site, when the orchard was cut down and the land was rezoned.
In 1989, it became the first garden in the United States to be preserved by The Garden Conservancy, and has been open to the public since 1992 Today the Garden is an outstanding landscape of xerophytes (dry-growing plants).
San Diego Zoo, San Diego CA
The San Diego Zoo is a zoo in Balboa Park, San Diego, California, housing 4000 animals of more than 650 species and subspecies on 100 acres (40 ha) . The San Diego Zoo was a pioneer in the concept of open-air, cageless exhibits that recreate natural animal habitats. With more than 4 million visitors in 2018, San Diego Zoo is the most visited zoo in the United States. The temperate, sunny maritime climate of California is well suited to many plants and animals. Besides an extensive collection of birds, reptiles, and mammals, it also maintains its grounds as an arboretum, with a rare plant collection. The zoo is also an accredited botanical garden; the botanical collection includes more than 700,000 exotic plants. As part of its gardening effort, some rare animal foods are grown at the zoo. For example, 40 varieties of bamboo were raised for the pandas when they were at the zoo on long-term loan from China. It also maintains 18 varieties of eucalyptus trees to feed its koalas.
San Francisco Botanical Garden, San Francisco, CA
The San Francisco Botanical Garden at Strybing Arboretum is located in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Its 55 acres (22.3 ha) represents nearly 9,000 different kinds of plants from around the world, with particular focus on Magnolia species, high elevation palms, conifers, and cloud forest species from Central America, South America and Southeast Asia. Plans for the garden were originally laid out in the 1880s by park supervisor John McLaren, but funding was insufficient to begin construction until Helene Strybing left a major bequest in 1927.
Sarah P. Duke Gardens, Durham, NC
Sarah P. Duke Gardens consist of approximately 55 acres (22 ha) of landscaped and wooded areas at Duke University located in Durham, North Carolina. There are 5 miles (8 km) of allées, walks, and pathways throughout the gardens. The gardens are divided into four areas, the Historic Core and Terraces, the H.L Blomquist Garden of Native Plants, the William Louis Culberson Asiatic Arboretum and the Doris Duke Center Gardens (including the Page-Rollins White Garden). The gardens are a memorial to Sarah Pearson Angier Duke, mother of Mary Duke Biddle and wife of Benjamin N. Duke, one of Duke University's benefactors.
Sea World of California, San Diego CA
SeaWorld is located on San Diego's Mission Bay. SeaWorld was founded on March 21, 1964, by four graduates of the University of California, Los Angeles.
Shadows-on-the-Teche, Iberia, LA
Shadows-on-the-Teche is a 3,750 square feet (348 m2) historic house, garden, and cemetery. Formerly a working sugar cane plantation with enslaved labor, it is located in New Iberia, Louisiana. Built in 1834 for planter, David Weeks (1786–1834) and his wife Mary Conrad Weeks (1797–1863). The property is also home to the Shadows-on-the-Teche cemetery. This is a National Historic Landmark since 1974 and is currently owned and operated by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The grounds were laid out by Shadows-on-the-Teche's last private owner, William Weeks Hall, who established gardens formed by boxwood hedges and aspidistra walks, that included live oaks, bamboo, camellias, azaleas, and other plantings.
Shelburne Museum and Heritage Park, Burlington, VT
Shelburne Museum is a museum of art, design, and Americana located in Shelburne, Vermont, United States. Over 150,000 works are exhibited in 39 exhibition buildings, 25 of which are historic and were relocated to the museum grounds. It is located on 45 acres (18 ha) near Lake Champlain. Impressionist paintings, folk art, quilts and textiles, decorative arts, furniture, American paintings, and an array of 17th- to 20th-century artifacts are on view. Shelburne is home to collections of 19th-century American folk art, quilts, 19th- and 20th-century decoys, and carriages.
South Coast Botanic Garden, Los Angeles
The South Coast Botanic Garden is a 87 acres (35 ha) botanical garden in the Palos Verdes Hills, in an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County, California, about 10 miles (16 km) south of Los Angeles International Airport. It has over 150,000 landscaped plants and trees from approximately 140 families, 700 genera, and 2,000 different species, including flowering fruit trees, Coast Redwoods, Ginkgos and Pittosporum. It is particularly rich in plants from Australia and South Africa. Its gardens include the Water-wise Garden, Herb Garden, English Rose Garden, and Garden of the Senses. A small lake and stream bed attract various birds such as ducks, geese, coots, and herons. Over 300 species of birds have been recorded. The lake is currently empty.
Taliesin West, Scottsdale AZ
Taliesin West was architect Frank Lloyd Wright's winter home and studio in the desert from 1937 until his death in 1959 at the age of 91. Today it is the headquarters of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. Open to the public for tours, Taliesin West is located on Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard in Scottsdale, Arizona. The complex drew its name from Wright's home, Taliesin, in Spring Green.
The Cloisters, Fort Tryon Park, NY
The Cloisters, also known as the Met Cloisters, is a museum in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, New York City. The museum, situated in Fort Tryon Park, specializes in European medieval art and architecture, with a focus on the Romanesque and Gothic periods. The quadrangle-shaped garden once formed a center around which monks slept in cells. The original garden seemed to have been lined by walkways around adjoining arches lined with capitals enclosing the garth. It is impossible now to represent solely medieval species and arrangements; those in the Cuxa garden are approximations by botanists specializing in medieval history. The oldest plan of the original building describes lilies and roses. Although the walls are modern, the capitals and columns are original and cut from pink Languedoc marble from the Pyrenees. The intersection of the two walkways contains an eight-sided fountain.
Tucson Botanical Gardens, Tucson, AZ
The Tucson Botanical Gardens is a 5.5 acre (2.2 ha) collection of sixteen residentially scaled urban gardens in Tucson, Arizona founded in 1964. Paths connect these gardens, which include a Zen Garden, a Prehistoric Garden, a Barrio Garden, a Butterfly Garden, a Xeriscape Garden, and a Children’s Garden. The Cox Butterfly & Orchid Pavilion is home to orchids, bromeliads, and jungle vegetation, along with a display of live tropical butterflies from five continents from October to April. The Cactus and Succulent Garden contains hundreds of cacti and arid plants arranged to imitate the arid Sonoran desert, and is embellished with exotic stones and minerals collected by the Gardens’ founder, Harrison Yocum. The Native Crops Garden illustrates the prehistoric agricultural practices in Central and Southern Arizona. The Tohono O’odham Path winds among edible and utilitarian plants of the Sonoran Desert.
US Naval Observatory, Washington DC
The United States Naval Observatory (USNO) is a scientific and military facility that produces geopositioning, navigation and timekeeping data for the United States Navy and the United States Department of Defense. Established in 1830 as the Depot of Charts and Instruments, it is one of the oldest scientific agencies in the United States and remains the country's leading authority for astronomical and timing data for all purposes.
The observatory is located in Northwest Washington, D.C. at the northwestern end of Embassy Row. It is among the few pre-20th century astronomical observatories located in an urban area; initially located in Foggy Bottom near the city's center, it was relocated to its Northwest DC location in 1893 to escape light pollution. A house situated on the grounds of the observatory, at Number One Observatory Circle, has been the official residence of the vice president of the United States since 1974. It is protected by tight security control enforced by the Secret Service. The house is separated from the Naval Observatory.
University of California Botanical Garden, Berkeley CA (Photos below)
The University of California Botanical Garden is a 34-acre (13.7 ha) botanical garden located on the University of California, Berkeley campus, in Strawberry Canyon. The garden is in the Berkeley Hills, inside the city boundary of Oakland, with views overlooking the San Francisco Bay. It is one of the most diverse plant collections in the United States, and famous for its large number of rare and endangered species. The garden was established in 1890 on the university's central campus. It was moved to its present location in the Berkeley Hills above the main campus under the directorship of Thomas Harper Goodspeed.
University of California Davis Arboretum, Davis CA
University of California Davis Arboretum, Davis CA
The UC Davis Arboretum was founded in 1936 to support teaching and research at the University of California. The Arboretum occupies 100 acres along the banks of the old north channel of Putah Creek, in California's Central Valley. The collections include 22,000 trees and plants adapted to a Mediterranean climate, with hot, dry summers and cool, wet winters. The plants are arranged in a series of gardens that represent different geographic areas, plant groups or horticultural themes.
US Botanic Garden, Washington DC
The United States Botanic Garden is a botanical garden created in 1820 on the grounds of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., near Garfield Circle. The Botanic Garden is supervised by the Congress through the Architect of the Capitol, who is responsible for maintaining the grounds of the United States Capitol.
Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, Miami FL
The Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, previously known as Villa Vizcaya, is the former villa and estate of businessman James Deering, of the Deering McCormick-International Harvester fortune, on Biscayne Bay in the present-day Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, Vizcaya’s story begins in 1910, fewer than 15 years after Miami was incorporated as a new city.
Wahiawa Botanical Garden, Oahu, HI
The Wahiawa Botanical Garden, 27 acres, is a botanical garden on a high plateau in central Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi, United States, located between the Wai'anae and Ko'olau mountain ranges.
Wave Hill Gardens, Bronx, NY
Wave Hill is a 28-acre estate in the Hudson Hill section of Riverdale in the Bronx, New York City. Wave Hill currently consists of public horticultural gardens and a cultural center, all situated on the slopes overlooking the Hudson River, with expansive views across the river to the New Jersey Palisades.
Winterthur Garden, Wilmington, DE
Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library is an American estate and museum in Winterthur, Delaware. Pronounced “winter-tour," Winterthur houses one of the richest collections of Americana in the United States. The garden is a result of the artistic vision of its creator, Henry Francis du Pont (1880-1969) and is surrounded by nearly 1,000 acres of meadows, farmland, and waterways. The views in every direction are important to the whole. The paths are an integral part of the overall design, curving rather than straight, following the contours of the land, passing around trees, and drawing walkers into the garden
WJ Beal Botanical Garden, Michigan State University, Lansing, MI
The W. J. Beal Botanical Garden, opened in 1873, is a 5-acre botanical garden located on the campus of Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. The oldest continuously operated garden of this type in the United States, the W. J. Beal Botanical Garden is an outdoor laboratory for the study of botany and horticulture.
Italy
Fiesole, Florence (photos below by Angus Stewart)
The Villa Medici is a patrician villa in Fiesole, Tuscany, the fourth oldest of the villas built for the Medici family. It was built between 1451 and 1457 and is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site inscribed as Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany.
Giardino e Rovine di Ninfa (photos below)
Giardino e Rovine di Ninfa
The Garden of Ninfa is a garden in the province of Latina, central Italy. The park has an area of 105 hectares, and is an Italian natural monument. Romantic and charming in character, the Garden of Ninfa stands on the remains of the medieval town of the same name, stretching over eight hectares, where parts of the castle, the walls, and remains of churches dot the landscape. But the greatness of the present naturalistic oasis is mainly due to Lelia Caetani, the last descendant of the Caetani family. It was she, in fact, who completed the project of the current garden that did not respond to any model, or fashion of the times, but simply to the creative instinct and the ability of the three women of the House.
Isola Bella (photos below)
The formal Italian-style baroque garden on Isola Bella is world-famous, in many places raised on artificial terraces like an elegant ship of stone and flowers sailing through the intense blue of Lake Maggiore. The nucleus of its complex theatrical structure, around the Teatro Massimo, is represented by ten superimposed terraces which form a truncated pyramid, surrounded by parterres on different levels, linked by stairways. The colossal unicorn, obelisks, statues and grottoes, the two water-wheel towers and other architectural elements astonish visitors. So does the planting. Here the soil and the climate of the lake offer an ideal habitat to allow species and varieties to grow on the island. White peacocks saunter amongst the magnificent architectural features recalling ancient Gods, mighty trees such as the camphor, citrus trees, rare for this latitude, and the splendid collections of roses, rhododendrons and camellias. The peacocks symbolise a place redolent of the eternal beauty of a Paradise on earth, or rather on water.
Isola Madre (photos below by Angus Stewart)
The Giardini Botanici dell'Isola Madre are historic botanical gardens located on the grounds of Isola Madre in the Borromean Islands of Lake Maggiore, accessible by ferry from Stresa, Piedmont, Italy. The gardens extend in seven terraces across the small island of Isola Madre, originally inhabited by Count Lancillotto Borromeo in the early sixteenth century. They were designed for Count Vitaliano Borromeo all’Inglese (in the English style) in the late eighteenth century on the site of a citrus orchard, and have remained essentially unchanged since.
La Mortella, Ischia (photos below)
La Mortella (Italian: place of myrtles) is a private garden in the island of Ischia. It was first opened to the public in 1991. It was created by Susana Walton (1926–2010), wife of the composer William Walton, starting in the 1950s as the main residence for the couple.
Tropical and Mediterranean plants were planted and some have now reached considerable proportions. The gardens include views over the city and harbour of Forio. The British garden designer Russell Page provided advice on the initial design, but the garden evolved over the course of more than 50 years of development by Lady Walton. After her husband died in 1983, his ashes were kept under a rock on this island. She opened the garden to the public in 1991 and handed over management and eventually ownership to the Fondazione William Walton.
Pompeii (photos below)
Pompeii is the name of the ancient city in the Metropolitan City of Naples, Italy, home of the ancient Roman ruins that are part of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Ravello (photos below by Angus Stewart)
Parco dei Mostri, Tivoli (photos below)
The Sacro Bosco ("Sacred Grove"), colloquially called Park of the Monsters (Parco dei Mostri in Italian), also named Garden of Bomarzo, is a Mannerist monumental complex located in Bomarzo, in northern Lazio, Italy.
The garden was created during the 16th century. The design is attributed to Pirro Ligorio, and the sculptures to Simone Moschino. Situated in a wooded valley bottom beneath the castle of Orsini, it is populated by grotesque sculptures and small buildings located among the natural vegetation.
Villa Adriana, Tivoli (photos below by Angus Stewart)
Hadrian's Villa (Italian: Villa Adriana) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site comprising the ruins and archaeological remains of a large villa complex built around AD 120 by Roman Emperor Hadrian near Tivoli outside Rome.
It is the most imposing and complex Roman villa known. The complex contains over 30 monumental and scenic buildings arranged on a series of artificial esplanades at different heights and surrounded by gardens decorated with water basins and nymphaea (fountains). The whole covers an area of at least a square kilometre, an area larger than the city of Pompeii. In addition to the villa's impressive layout, many of the buildings are considered masterpieces of architecture, making use of striking curved shapes enabled by extensive use of concrete. They were ingenious for the complex symmetry of their ground plans and are considered unrivalled until the arrival of Baroque architecture in the 1600s initiated by Borromini who used Hadrian's Villa for inspiration.
Villa Lante Viturbo (photos below)
The gardens of the Villa Lante feature cascades, fountains and dripping grottoes. The visual and harmonious choreography of water and the mechanical perfection of its flow was only achieved after Tommaso Ghinucci, a hydraulics engineer and architect from Siena, was called in; it is thought that his role was to oversee the hydraulics and building work. Although the renowned antiquarian and architect Pirro Ligorio was also consulted, it seems likely that the success of the water features is due to Ghinucci's expertise which ensured that water flows through the gardens to this day.
Villa Balbionella (photos below)
The Villa del Balbianello is a villa in the comune of Lenno, a province in the north of the Lombardy region of Italy, overlooking Lake Como. It is located on the tip of the small wooded peninsula of Dosso d'Avedo on the western shore of the south-west branch of Lake Como, 1500 meters east from the Isola Comacina.
Villa Carlotta (photos below)
This Italian garden dates back to the XVII Century with its geometrical schema, stair and terraces, statues and fountains; the echoes of the Romantic period, are still alive in the structure of the park with large old trees and views of great charm.
Villa Cimbrone, Ravello (photos below)
One of the most spectacular views of the Amalfi Coast is from Villa Cimbrone’s Terrace of Infinity, a dramatic overlook lined with classical busts and offering sweeping panoramas of the coastline.
Villa d’Este, Tivoli (photos below)
The Villa d'Este is a 16th-century villa in Tivoli, near Rome, famous for its terraced hillside Italian Renaissance garden and especially for its profusion of fountains. It is now an Italian state museum, and is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Villa Gamberaia, Florence
Villa Gamberaia is a seventeenth-century villa near Settignano, outside Florence, Tuscany. It is it characterized now by eighteenth-century terraced garden.
Edith Wharton, Italian Villas and Their Gardens (London, 1903), pp. 33-37.
Probably the most perfect example of the art of producing a great effect on a small scale… because it combines in an astonishingly small space, yet without the least sense of overcrowding, almost every typical excellence of the old Italian garden: free circulation of sunlight and air about the house; abundance of water; easy access to dense shade; sheltered walks with different points of view; variety of effect produced by the skillful use of different levels; and, finally, breadth and simplicity of composition.
Villa Garzoni, Florence (photos below)
Villa Garzoni is a villa near Lucca. The garden was built shortly before 1652 by the Garzoni family, relating to the site of the old castle, which stands slightly apart, closely associated with the village that nestles round it, on the edge of a clifflike slope, which had been chosen in earlier times for its defensible approach. The garden of Villa Garzoni, whose layout "makes the fullest use of a precipitous hillside site in a manner that is usually associated with Rome", features a water garden, constructed at the foot of a series of balustraded terraces and a suite of grand symmetrical staircases connecting the lower water gardens at the base of the hill, with the house, the cascade, the teatro di verdura and other garden features above. At each terrace level, side walk past fantastically clipped yew blend imperceptibly with the wooded slope. Its cascade which the exigencies of the site prevented from alignment with the main axis, has been called one of two "culminating High Baroque statements" of the trends toward drama and spectacle.
Villa Le Balze, Florence (photos below)
Villa Le Balze is a garden villa in Fiesole, in the region of Tuscany in central Italy. The villa was commissioned and built by Charles Augusts Strong in 1913, where he spent much of his life. It was then embroiled in the fighting of the Second World War and came into the possession of Margaret Rockefeller Strong. The villa is today owned by Georgetown University and hosts year-round study abroad students focused on interdisciplinary study of Italian culture and civilization, as well as such other subjects as politics and history
Villa Massei (photos below)
Villa Massei is a 16th-century hunting lodge and 60 acres estate in Massa Macinaia, near the ancient walled city of Lucca, Italy, known for its fine gardens, which are visited by hundreds of garden lovers from all over the world annually.
The house was built by the Counts Sinibaldi in about 1500, and was inherited by the Marchesi Massei in the 18th century, nephews of the Sinibaldi. In the 1950s the property was home to Lionel Fielden, founder of All India Radio and author of The Natural Bent. In 1981 Gil Cohen and Paul Gervais, both of Boston, bought the estate, and over the years have developed its garden, which "represents the best of old and new, an 'exquisite recreation' of a Renaissance garden, complete with lemon trees in terracotta pots, and inspired innovations introduced by its visionary new owners. Gervais and Cohen sold the property to the TenCate family of The Netherlands in 2014.
Villa Melzi, (photos below)
Picturesque botanical garden with statues, lakeside paths & a villa on the grounds.
Villa Rufolo, Ravello (photos below)
Villa Rufolo is a villa within the historic center of Ravello, a town southern Italy, which overlooks the front of the cathedral square. The initial layout dates from the 13th century with extensive remodeling in the 19th century.
England
Blenheim Palace, Woodstock
Blenheim Palace is a country house in Woodstock, Oxfordshire. It is the seat of the Dukes of Marlborough and the only non-royal, non-episcopal country house in England to hold the title of palace. Created over the centuries by esteemed garden designers such as Henry Wise and Achille Duchêne, the Formal Gardens reflect a journey through the styles of the ages. The Formal Gardens surround the Palace, and they include the majestic Water Terraces, the Duke's Private Italian Garden, the tranquil Secret Garden with all of its hidden treasures, the Churchill Memorial Garden and the beautifully delicate Rose Garden.
Borde Hill Garden, Haywards Heath
Borde Hill Garden is a garden located 1.5 miles north of Haywards Heath, West Sussex in southern England. It is set in over 300 acres of garden, park and woodlands which has views across the Sussex High Weald. Borde Hill Garden is planted in “living garden rooms”, each offering a different character and style. Plants have been in the family’s DNA since 1598 when Stephen Borde, the grandson of Henry VIII’s private herbalist and physician Andrew Borde, rebuilt the picturesque Elizabethan Mansion House at the core of the Estate.
Cambridge University Botanic Garden, Cambridge
The Cambridge University Botanic Garden is a botanical garden associated with the university Department of Plant Sciences. The garden covers an area of 16 hectares. The Botanic Garden is a treasure trove of over 8,000 plant species, including nine National Collections and a wonderful arboretum.
Charleston, Lewes
Charleston, in East Sussex, is a property associated with the Bloomsbury group, that is open to the public. It was the country home of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant and is an example of their decorative style within a domestic context, representing the fruition of more than sixty years of artistic creativity. Charleston’s beautiful walled garden is designed as a living painting and filled with sculpture,. The garden at Charleston was a canvas, a studio, a prop store, a stage, a sanctuary, and is absolutely central to the creativity of the place.
Chelsea Flower Show, London
The RHS Chelsea Flower Show, formally known as the Great Spring Show, is a garden show held for five days in May by the Royal Horticultural Society in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea in Chelsea, London. Held at Chelsea since 1912, the show is attended by members of the British Royal Family.
Chelsea Physic Garden, London
The Chelsea Physic Garden was established as the Apothecaries' Garden in London, in 1673 by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries to grow plants to be used as medicines.
David Austin Rose Gardens, Albrighton
Nestled in the UK's Shropshire countryside these award winning rose gardens are home to the National Collection of English Roses. The five themed gardens are free to visit and open year round. Considered to be one of the finest rose gardens in the world, it is one of only three gardens in England to have received the 'Award of Garden Excellence' from the World Federation of Rose Societies.
Denmans, Fontwell
The former home and garden of the late John Brookes MBE, one of Britain’s most influential landscape designers, Denmans Garden features dry riverbeds, gravel gardens, a walled garden, a conservatory, and unusual plants. The contemporary 4-acre garden was converted from market garden to ornamental garden by plantswoman Joyce Robinson who started the gravel gardens in 1970.
Gravetye Manor Hotel, East Grinstead
The gardens, set over 35 acres of beautiful grounds originally created by visionary gardener William Robinson in 1885, are now considered one of the most important historic gardens in England. Every tree, shrub and flower is lovingly cared for by our head gardener Tom Coward, and his dedicated team.
Great Dixter, Northiam
Great Dixter is a house in Northiam, East Sussex, built in 1910–12 by architect Edwin Lutyens, who combined an existing mid-15th century house on the site with a similar structure brought from Benenden, Kent, together with his own additions. The garden, widely known for its continuous tradition of sophisticated plantsmanship, is Grade I listed in the National Register of Historic Parks. Lloyd and Lutyens began the garden at Great Dixter, but it was Lloyd's son Christopher Lloyd, a well known garden writer and television personality, who made it famous. The garden is in the arts and crafts style, and features topiary, a long border, an orchard and a wild flower meadow. The planting is profuse, yet structured, and has featured many bold experiments of form, colour and combination. The garden is currently managed by Fergus Garrett, who worked closely with Lloyd up until his death in 2006.
Green Park, London
Green Park is a peaceful triangle of mature trees and grasslands which offers a quiet retreat from city life, right next to Buckingham Palace. Visit a range of memorials, fountains and statues and look out for Royal Gun Salutes when ceremonial guns are fired to mark special royal occasions. Rumour has it, back in the seventeenth century King Charles II's wife demanded all the flowers be removed from Green Park after she caught him picking flowers there for another woman. The park still has no formal flowerbeds but is riot of yellow in spring, when around one million daffodil bulbs are in bloom. Green Park is one of London’s eight Royal Parks and covers an area of just over 40 acres.
Hampton Court Palace
Hampton Court Palace is a royal palace in Richmond upon Thames, 12 miles southwest and upstream of central London on the River Thames. The building of the palace began in 1514 for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the chief minister of Henry VIII.
Hatfield House, Hatfield
Hatfield House is a country house set in a large park, the Great Park, on the eastern side of the town of Hatfield, Hertfordshire. The present Jacobean house, a leading example of the prodigy house, was built in 1611 by Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury and Chief Minister to King James I.
Hever Castle, Hever
Hever Castle is located in the village of Hever, Kent, near Edenbridge, 30 miles south-east of London. It began as a country house, built in the 13th century. From 1462 to 1539, it was the seat of the Boleyn family. Discover magnificent award-winning gardens set in 125 acres of glorious grounds at Hever Castle. See the Pompeiian Wall and classical statuary in the Italian Garden; admire the giant topiary chess set and inhale the fragrance of over 5,000 rose bushes in the quintessential English Rose Garden.
Hidcote Manor Garden, Hidcote Bartrim
Hidcote Manor Garden, 10.5 acres, is a garden in the village of Hidcote Bartrim, near Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire owned by the National Trust. It is one of the best-known and most influential Arts and Crafts gardens in Britain, with its linked "garden rooms" of hedges, rare trees, shrubs and herbaceous borders. Created by the talented horticulturist, Major Lawrence Johnston, its colourful and intricately designed outdoor ‘rooms’ are always full of surprises.
High Beeches, Handcross
With 27 acres of woodland, water gardens, and a collection of rare, exotic and award-winning plants, High Beeches Garden is one of Sussex's finest gardens and is home to a plant collection that includes specimens from many parts of the world. It is a hidden gem in the High Weald of West Sussex. A botanical treasure trove and classic English idyll make it one of the most wonderful woodland gardens in the South East.
Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, London
Once part of Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens offers a mix of old and new park pastimes and green space.
Kiftsgate Court Gardens, Chipping Camden
Kiftsgate Court Gardens is situated above the village of Mickleton in the county of Gloucestershire, in the far north of the county close to the county border with both Worcestershire and Warwickshire. The gardens, famed for its roses, are the creation of three generations of women gardeners.
Knole, Sevenoaks
Knole is a country house and former archbishop's palace owned by the National Trust. It is situated within Knole Park, a 1,000-acre park located immediately to the south-east of Sevenoaks in west Kent. The house ranks in the top five of England's largest houses, under any measure used, occupying a total of four acres.
Leonardslee Lakes and Gardens, Lower Beeding
Set in a steep-sided valley, this woodland garden contains seven lakes and an impressive collection of mature trees and flowering shrubs. Colour abounds across the seasons, with camellias, rhododendrons, azaleas, magnolias, wildflowers (including orchids), vibrant autumn foliage and stark winter beauty. Look out for wildlife too, such as buzzards, kites, deer and rabbits, as well as the resident wallabies. The woodland at Leonardslee Lakes and Gardens, has long been a refuge for wildlife such as badgers, weasels and stoats, along with fallow and sika deer. If you’re lucky, you may spot the flash of a kingfisher over the lakes. There are some more unusual residents too – a family of Tasmanian wallabies. Their thick coats are well adapted to the cold, while their large rotating ears allow them to detect potential predators and hop to safety. Look out for the tiny joeys as they peek from their mother’s pouch.
Mottisfont Abbey Garden, Mottisfont
Mottisfont Abbey in Hampshire is famous for its Rose Gardens set within a walled garden. Fabulous scents from old fashioned roses trail walls, pergolas, arches and abound everywhere. Other plants intermingle giving a fantastic picture of intense colours. The roses are best in the last 2 weeks of June but much is dependent on the weather. Plenty more to see within the walled garden with lovely lavender walk and colourful herbaceous gardens and a small lavender parterre close to the Abbey. This is a must visit garden in June. The grounds are now open most of the year and there is a new winter garden ( around 0.5 acre ) which is starting to mature. The historic Abbey is also a must see with many superb rooms, furniture and decorations.
Museum of Garden History, London
Charming church turned museum featuring horticultural exhibits & an elegant cafe.
Nymans, Handcross
Nymans is an English garden to the east of the village of Handcross, West Sussex. The garden was developed, starting in the late 19th century, by three generations of the Messel family, and was brought to renown by Leonard Messel. A garden lovers' home for all seasons, with an extensive yet intimate garden set around a romantic house and ruins.
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is an internationally important botanical research and education institution which employs 1,100 staff.
Discover the world of science behind the botanical collections, with over 50,000 living plants to be found across our UNESCO World Heritage site.
Royal Horticultural Garden, Wisley, Woking
RHS Garden Wisley is a garden run by the Royal Horticultural Society in Wisley, Surrey, south of London. It is one of five gardens run by the society, the others being Harlow Carr, Hyde Hall, Rosemoor, and Bridgewater (which opened on 18 May 2021). Wisley is the second most visited paid entry garden in the United Kingdom after the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, with 1,232,772 visitors in 2019
Scotney Castle Garden, Kent
Scotney Castle is an English country house with formal gardens south-east of Lamberhurst in the valley of the River Bewl in Kent. It belongs to the National Trust. The gardens, which are a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a celebrated example of the Picturesque style, are open to the public. The central feature is the ruins of a medieval, moated manor house, Scotney Old Castle, which is on an island on a small lake. The lake is surrounded by sloping, wooded gardens with fine collections of rhododendrons, azaleas and kalmia for spring colour, summer wisteria and roses, and spectacular autumn colour.
Sezincote , Morton-in-Marsh
Sezincote House (pronounced seas in coat) is the centre of a country estate in the county of Gloucestershire. The house was designed by Samuel Pepys Cockerell, built in 1805, and is a notable example of Neo-Mughal architecture, a 19th-century reinterpretation of 16th and 17th-century architecture from the Mughal Empire. Sezincote is dominated by its red sandstone colour, typical in Mughal architecture, but features a copper-covered dome instead of the typical white marble. The fenestration is composed of a sequence of extra-large windows with an arch-shape at the top. The arch, however, is not a simple or typical design, but instead a shell-like fan that is evidence of the Mughal influence. The interior design is more typical European style. The landscape was designed by Humphry Repton. It is essentially a renaissance-style garden with elements of Hindu style, as seen in the crescent bridge with columns.
Sandringham, King’s Lynn
Sandringham House is a country house in the parish of Sandringham, Norfolk, one of the royal residences of Charles III, whose grandfather, George VI, and great-grandfather, George V, both died there. The house stands in a 20,000-acre (8,100 ha) estate and the landscaped gardens, park and woodlands are on the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. The site has been occupied since Elizabethan times, when a large manor house was constructed. This was replaced in 1771 by a Georgian mansion for the owners, the Hoste Henleys. In 1836 Sandringham was bought by John Motteux, a London merchant, who already owned property in Norfolk and Surrey. Motteux had no direct heir, and on his death in 1843, his entire estate was left to Charles Spencer Cowper, the son of Motteux's close friend Emily Temple, Viscountess Palmerston. Cowper sold the Norfolk and the Surrey estates and embarked on rebuilding at Sandringham. He led an extravagant life, and by the early 1860s, the estate was mortgaged and he and his wife spent most of their time on the Continent. The gardens and country park comprise 600 acres (240 ha) of the estate with the gardens extending to 49 acres (20 ha). They were predominantly laid out from the 1860s, with later alterations and simplifications.
Savill Garden, Windsor Surrey
The Savill Garden is an enclosed part of Windsor Great Park in England, created by Sir Eric Savill in the 1930s. The garden includes woodland, ornamental areas and a pond. The attractions include the New Zealand Garden, the Queen Elizabeth Temperate House and trees planted by members of the Royal Family. In June 2010, a new contemporary rose garden designed by Andrew Wilson and Gavin McWilliam of Wilson McWilliam Studio was opened by Queen Elizabeth.
Sheffield Park Garden, Uckfield
Sheffield Park and Garden is an informal landscape garden five miles east of Haywards Heath, in East Sussex. It was originally laid out in the 18th century by Capability Brown, and further developed as a woodland garden in the early 20th century by its then owner, Arthur Gilstrap Soames. It is now owned by the National Trust.
Sissinghurst Castle
Sissinghurst Castle Garden, at Sissinghurst in the Weald of Kent, was created by Vita Sackville-West, poet and writer, and her husband Harold Nicolson, author and diplomat. It is among the most famous gardens in England and is designated Grade I on Historic England's register of historic parks and gardens. It was bought by Sackville-West in 1930, and over the next thirty years, working with, and later succeeded by, a series of notable head gardeners, she and Nicolson transformed a farmstead of "squalor and slovenly disorder" into one of the world's most influential gardens. Following Sackville-West's death in 1962, the estate was donated to the National Trust. It was ranked 42nd on the list of the Trust's most-visited sites in the 2021–2022 season, with over 150,000 visitors. The gardens contain an internationally respected plant collection, particularly the assemblage of old garden roses
Stourhead, Stourton
Stourhead (formerly Stowe Landscape Gardens , Stowe) is a 1,072-hectare (2,650-acre) estate at the source of the River Stour in the southwest of the English county of Wiltshire, extending into Somerset. The estate is about 4 km (2+1⁄2 mi) northwest of the town of Mere and includes a Grade I listed 18th-century Neo-Palladian mansion, the village of Stourton, one of the most famous gardens in the English landscape garden style, farmland, and woodland. Stourhead has been part-owned by the National Trust since 1946.
Trengwainton, Penzance
Trengwainton (Cornish: Tredhigwenton, meaning farm of eternal springtime) is a garden situated in Madron, near Penzance, Cornwall, which has been in the ownership of the National Trust since 1961. The garden is noted for its collection of exotic trees and shrubs and offers views over Mount's Bay and The Lizard.
Trewithen Garden, Truro
Trewithen House is a Georgian country house in Probus, Cornwall. The Palladian house was built by London-based architect Thomas Edwards in 1723. The house is listed Grade I on the National Heritage List for England, and its gardens are Grade II* listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. The grounds of Trewithen Estate are noteworthy, with a prominent 200 yard-long lawn and gardens containing some rare plants,
University of Oxford Botanic Garden, Oxford
The University of Oxford Botanic Garden is the oldest botanic garden in Great Britain and one of the oldest scientific gardens in the world. The garden was founded in 1621 as a physic garden growing plants for medicinal research. Today it contains over 5,000 different plant species on 1.8 ha (4+1⁄2 acres). It is one of the most diverse yet compact collections of plants in the world and includes representatives from over 90% of the higher plant families.
Wakehurst, Haywards Heath
Wakehurst, previously known as Wakehurst Place, is a house and botanic gardens in West Sussex, owned by the National Trust but used and managed by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. It is near Ardingly, West Sussex in the High Weald and comprises a late 16th-century mansion, a mainly 20th-century garden and, in a modern building, Kew's Millennium Seed Bank. Visitors are able to see the gardens, the Mansion, and also visit the seed bank. The garden today covers some 2 km2 (490 acres) and includes walled and water gardens, woodland and wetland conservation areas. RBG Kew has leased the land from the National Trust since 1965 and much has been achieved in this time, from the Millennium Seed Bank project and the creation of the Loder Valley and Francis Rose Nature Reserves to the introduction of the visitor centre, the Seed café and Stables restaurant along with the development of the gardens.
West Dean Gardens, West Dean
West Dean House is a large flint-faced manor house situated in West Dean, West Sussex, near the historic City of Chichester. This country estate has approximately 6,350 acres (25.7 km2) of land and dates back to 1086, with various royal connections throughout the years. In 1971 the Estate became the home of West Dean College, a centre of study of conservation, arts, crafts, writing, gardening, and music. The award-winning West Dean Gardens surround the West Dean Estate in the South Downs. Head Gardener Jim Buckland and his wife Sarah Wain restored the Gardens after they suffered severe damage in the 1987 and 1990 storms. The Gardens have been awarded an English Heritage Garden Grade of II*. West Dean features a restored walled kitchen garden with 13 Victorian glasshouses. Robin Lane Fox in the Financial Times said "West Dean has a large walled kitchen garden whose standards are wonderfully high. Greenhouse after greenhouse smiles with top-class plants, fruit and rarities."
France
Avignon - Palais de Papes, Petramale, Jardin des Doms
The Palace Garden for which particular attention was paid to the XNUMXth century hydraulic network, of which there are many traces, and which was chosen as the structuring element of the design of the Palace Garden, delimiting the large rectangles where Mediterranean plant species attested in the XNUMXth century are planted in these pontifical gardens.
The Pope's Garden is an intimate garden, which had direct access from the Pope's apartments. The redevelopment gives it back its precious character with the re-creation of the well-known griffin fountain through archaeological remains and the archives, as well as the flowery meadow that surrounded it. The famous and imposing Roma building, of which only a trace remains on the ground, but which is known from old drawings, has been reconstructed in the form of a monumental pergola which will eventually be entirely covered with plants.
Caillebottte Garden, Yerres
French Impressionist painter Gustave Caillebotte family estate, where the artist spent his childhood and early career.
Chateau de Cheronceau, Chenonceaux
Diane de Poitiers’ garden, a ‘floating’ parterre (12,000 m2), much of which was created in the Renaissance.
Chateau de Vaux-Vicomte Gardens,
The Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte, founded in 1656, is a Baroque French château located in Maincy, near Melun, 55 kilometres southeast of Paris. The exquisite interior decoration was supervised by the painter Charles Le Brun. The garden, designed by André Le Nôtre, was the prototype of the gardens that Le Nôtre later designed for Louis XIV at Versailles.
Chateau Villandry
The Château de Villandry is a grand country house located in Villandry, in the département of Indre-et-Loire, France. It is especially known for its beautiful gardens.
Festival des Jardins de Chaumont
The castle was founded in the 10th century by Odo I, Count of Blois. After Pierre d'Amboise rebelled against Louis XI, the king ordered the castle's destruction. Later in the 15th century Château de Chaumont was rebuilt by Charles I d'Amboise. The International Garden Festival at Chaumont-sur-Loire has been held annually since 1992 and each year a theme is explored in the festival’s display gardens.
Jardin de la Noria, Avignon
Inspired by the remains of an old noria and the theme of the gardens of paradise, this garden, a contemporary creation, was designed by two landscape architects anchored in the Mediterranean: Arnaud Maurières and Eric Ossart. The designers wanted to reconcile tradition and modernity by respecting the rural site of the Mas de Licon and the traces of the old local agriculture, while declining a resolutely contemporary vocabulary.
Monet’s Garden, Giverny
There are two parts in Monet's garden: a flower garden called Clos Normand in front of the house and a Japanese inspired water garden on the other side of the road. When Monet and his family settled in Giverny in 1883 the piece of land sloping gently down from the house to the road was planted with an orchard and enclosed by high stone walls. The land is divided into flowerbeds where flower clumps of different heights create volume. Fruit trees or ornamental trees dominate the climbing roses, the long -stemmed hollyhocks and the coloured banks of annuals. Monet mixed the simplest flowers (daisies and poppies) with the most rare varieties. The central alley is covered over by iron arches on which climbing roses grow. Other rose trees cover the balustrade along the house. At the end of the summer nasturtiums invade the soil in the central alley.
Parc de Bagatelle, Paris
The Parc de Bagatelle, situated at the heart of the Bois de Boulogne, is one of the City of Paris’s four botanical gardens. Created in 1775, the park and its chateau were built in 64 days after a wager between Queen Marie-Antoinette and her brother in-law, the Count of Artois. As well as giant trees and varied plant life, little bridges, rocks, caves, expanses of water and artificial waterfalls add to the charm and romantic aspect of the park. The 19th century Chinese pagoda is just one of the park’s curiosities. Visitors can admire the magnificent rose garden with 10,000 rose bushes from 1,200 different species.
Parc de la Tete d’Or, Lyon
The Parc de la Tête d'or is a large urban park in Lyon, France, with an area of approximately 117 hectares. The park contains four rose gardens, but also huge greenhouses, a botanical garden, a zoo and a velodrome.
Spain
Jardi Botanic Marimurtra, Costa Brava (photos below)
Marimurtra Botanical Garden is one of the most beautiful gardens on the Mediterranean. At the top of steep cliffs running along the sea, you can enjoy one of the most spectacular panoramic views over the coastline and get to know more than four thousand plant species, most of them exotic ones, as well as several specimens that are extraordinary because of their age or size. Marimurtra is the work of a man with a passion for nature. Carl Faust (Hadamar, Germany 1874-Blanes 1952), was a businessman residing in Catalonia who devoted his hopes, his efforts and all his fortune to make his dream come true, the Botanical Garden Marimurtra.
Jardin de Santa Clotilde, Barcelona
This wonderful garden was landscaped in a setting of great beauty on top of a cliff with breath-taking views over the sea, and it is a fine specimen of the spirit that animated the Noucentista movement in Catalonia - an early twentieth-century movement for intellectual and aesthetic renewal that found a distinguished spokesman in the writer Eugeni d'Ors. The Santa Clotilde gardens were designed in the manner of the dainty yet austere gardens of the Italian Renaissance by Nicolau Rubió i Tuduri at the age of twenty-eight, when he was still brimming over with admiration for his master in the art of landscape gardening.
Parc Guell, Barcelona (photos below)
The park is one of the largest green spaces in Barcelona, with more than 17 hectares, next to the Sierra de Collserola. Beyond the architectural heritage, the park constitutes a reserve of nature, gardens and biodiversity in the center of the city.
