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06/21/2023 07:18 AMSunday, June 25 is Connecticut Historic Gardens Day
Some activities have “summer” written all over them. Think swimming in Long Island Sound or at a favorite lake. Ditto for picnicking or camping at a state park, sailing, boating, or paddling a kayak on the Connecticut River.
For me, visiting public gardens is high on the list of my favorite summertime activities. I’ve visited public gardens all over the United States, Canada, and even Europe and South America. Yet, within our state, we have about 25 public garden landscapes to enjoy. Some are botanic gardens or arboretums with research missions. Others are historic gardens, providing a peek into the historic plants and plantings of the past. Yet more are designed as natural “hot spots” for native plants, birds, insects, and more.
No matter which you visit, from now until mid-October, public gardens are filled with botanical eye candy.
Furthermore, Sunday, June 25, is Connecticut Historic Gardens Day. (See cthistoricgardens.org.) Sixteen historical gardens statewide will hold various events, many with free admission. Three of the sixteen are along the shoreline.
Florence Griswold Museum
Old Lyme’s Florence Griswold Museum is perhaps best known for the impressionist painters who gathered there at the beginning of the 20th century, forming the Lyme Art Colony. It is also known for Krieble Gallery, outdoor dining at Café Flo, and beautiful views of the Lieutenant River.
But on June 25, its outrageously colorful historic gardens will be the headliner. The museum’s garden volunteers, known as the Garden Gang, will lead tours and answer questions from noon to 4 p.m.
‘Miss Florence,’ as Florence Griswold was known, was an avid gardener. According to Linda Turner, gardens coordinator, “Her garden was once described as a tangle of flowers and fragrance, a very chaotic blend of her favorite plants, including 'friendship plants' that were shared by friends and neighbors. She sold pansies and bouquets from her gardens and adorned the house with vases full of fragrance and color.”
As the museum evolved over the past 75 years, clues about Miss Florence’s plantings surfaced. Artists who boarded there sometimes painted the gardens, and their works hint at the species she grew. Her correspondence and seed catalogs provided additional clues. Then a 1990 archaeology dig helped identify the physical boundaries of the garden beds and walkways.
Turner says, “The abundance of the museum’s plantings today reflects Miss Florence’s love of flowers and her joy at sharing it all with her boarders and tourists.”
How does one keep a garden both historically accurate as well as pleasing to modern sensibilities?
“It is quite a challenge to research and find plants that were locally available in 1910, which is the museum’s period of focus,” says Turner. “Finding original species or varieties is many times impossible.”
She says it is also hard to use plants that are historically correct but no longer considered good selections. “They did use native plants,” says Turner, “but they also used plants we today might call invasive and exotic. Some of these plants were used extensively before our current knowledge of the issues they present.” She says that potentially harmful plants, like castor beans and monkshood, have been removed from the gardens.
For more information, visit florencegriswoldmuseum.org, 96 Lyme St, Old Lyme, 860-434-5542
Harkness Mansion & Grounds
Waterford’s Harkness State Park is well known for sweeping views of Long Island Sound, beautiful natural areas, and lovely picnic grounds. It is also known for its stately Roman Renaissance Revival mansion with 42 rooms, built in 1906, and its carefully restored historic gardens.
The gardens and grounds were designed by Beatrix Farrand, America’s first high-profile female landscape designer and a founding member of the American Society of Landscape Architects. The plantings are formal, including Asian and Italian styles, boxwood parterres, and an intriguing, less formal alpine garden. The gardens are true to Farrand’s original designs, based on her archived plans.
On June 25, Friends of Harkness will offer docent-led tours of the mansion and gardens from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tours are free of charge that day, with the last tour leaving at 1:30. (The gift shop will be open, too.)
Hint: Don’t leave the state park before visiting the colorful tall-grass meadows and gentle trails in the William A. Neiring Natural Area Preserve. This scenic walk on the west side of the mansion takes visitors to the edge of Goshen Cove and a bird observation area. See harkness.org or call 860-437-1523.
Thankful Arnold House
A woman named Thankful Arnold once lived, raised a family, and grew much of the family’s food at an 18th-century home near modern Route 9 in Haddam. Her 1830 garden would have emphasized storage crops that could keep food on the table throughout winter, such as potatoes, turnips, onions, cabbage, and carrots. Today, the site has a historically appropriate garden devoted to 50 varieties of herbs that had culinary, medicinal, or other practical uses in the 18th and 19th centuries.
On June 25, volunteers will provide tours, answer questions about the garden, make lavender sachets with visitors, and serve rhubarb tea. Children are welcome. See haddamhistory.org or call 860-345-2400.
Connecticut College Arboretum
Offering more than 750 acres of plant collections, natural areas, and gentle trails, Connecticut College Arboretum provides the most extensive botanical experience of any public garden in the state. Its grounds are open from sunrise to sunset daily.
It is no surprise that the arboretum has been a living laboratory for students and professors to research the natural world since its founding in 1931. It is perhaps less well known, however, how much public education the Arboretum offers, from tours to classes to webinars. For instance, there’s a free guided tour of the Caroline Black Garden on the second Sunday of each month, May through October. At the main Arboretum grounds, there are native plant walks, tree walks, workshops on propagation and pruning. The Arboretum schedule also features webinars on ecology and horticulture.
Find the main entrance between the wrought iron gates on Williams Street in New London, across the street from the entrance to the Conn College campus. Easy trails lead to the native plant collection, a pond, wetlands, and natural areas. The Arboretum has two other areas in New London and Waterford within a mile of the main campus. The website offers printable maps, interactive maps, and informative “story” maps, as well as a schedule of events. See conncoll.edu/the-arboretum or call 860-439-5020.
Meigs Point Nature Center
What’s a nature center doing on a list of public gardens? Meigs Point at Hammonasset State Park in Madison devotes a large part of its grounds to ten themed planting areas. Each illustrates landscape practices and plants that nurture wildlife, are gentle on the earth, and create beauty. The Friendship Pond Garden was first, developed in the 1990s. Since then, gardens for butterflies, pollinators, rainwater capture, coastal plants, Three Sisters vegetables, and herbs have joined the roster.
The most remarkable area to me, however, is the purple martin habitat. It is easily viewed from the deck behind the main building or the lawn but is cordoned off to provide purple martins and their chicks the space and sense of safety they need. Martins are a Species of Special Concern, according to the state’s Department of Energy and Environment.
Meigs Point gardens are the antithesis of formal. Beds and paths are shaped to fit the landscape. The plants are of different sizes and heights. Grasses, flowers, and shrubs intermingle. The gardens occupy a slope with a sweeping view of tidal marshes and the Hammonasset River. State beaches and bathhouses are across the road, less than 500’ away.
The gardeners practice “save the stems” in autumn and winter, allowing dry stalks to stand for birds and overwintering bees. (See the column I wrote last winter on “Save the Stems.”) They also practice “leave the leaves,” using leaves as mulch on the garden beds. The meandering paths are made of woodchips. Even when the plants are dormant, the visitor can’t help but understand that the garden is teeming with life. Overall, the message is, “Try this at home.”
Like Conn College Arboretum, Meigs Point Nature Center has an educational mission. Visit meigspointnaturecenter.org to see the event schedule or call 203-245-8743.
If you are traveling throughout the broader region, the public garden choices are many and impressive. It’s also significant that each of these places is at least partially powered by the work of volunteer docents, gardeners, naturalists, and more. Their gift of time and skill is noteworthy.
If one of these places is new to you, try it. You might find your new favorite place. And, if you’d like to travel a little further afield, here are some more options:
Greater New Haven area:
West of New Haven
In Hartford
Greater Hartford & Northeast
Massachusetts
New York
Kathy Connolly writes about horticulture, landscapes, and land care from Old Saybrook. She says this list may not be exhaustive, and welcomes suggestions. Kathy@SpeakingofLandscapes.com.