Ultimate Garden Tour

Start your trip on a late morning amidst an embarrassment of roses at Elizabeth Park in Hartford. Listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the park has been growing and displaying roses for 109 years and now boasts garden areas, pathways, greenhouses, lawns, a pond and a picnic grove on 102 acres. As to the rose garden itself, it’s 2.5 acres, with 800 varieties of the flower growing on some 15,000 plants. The fragrance of roses in full bloom (June and early July) is something you’ll never forget.

Following a stroll for lunch at the Pond House Café or a stop-off at Piccolo Arancio in Farmington, head next for the Hill-Stead Museum, where today your focus will be on the gardens outdoors rather than the wonderful Impressionist art indoors. The spectacular grounds were designed by Theodate Pope for her parents’ new home (which she also designed) and a key feature is the octagonal sunken garden, with brick walkways, summerhouse, a formal hedge and 36 perennial beds encompassing more than 90 plant varieties.

Continue west for a slow immersion into the Litchfield Hills, eventually arriving at White Flower Farm, a Litchfield shrine for American gardeners since 1950. White Flower’s “store” is a retail operation covering more than 5 acres, including a Begonia House, Shade Garden, Moon Garden and Polinator Garden, along with many other features. Bet you can’t leave without taking something for the garden back home!

After breakfast and some sightseeing in Litchfield, head for the Bellamy-Ferriday House & Garden in Bethlehem (it opens at noon). The antiques-filled 1754 landmark (once home to the town’s first minister) features a formal parterre garden with roses, peonies and lilacs.

Next, get to the Glebe House in Woodbury with its Gertrude Jekyll Garden, the only extant American garden planned by England’s most venerated designer. The house was built in around 1750 and contains many of the furnishings of that day. The garden dates from 1926, when Jekyll planned 600 feet of classic English-style mixed border and foundation plantings, a planted stone terrace and an intimate rose allee.