High Elms

Stone walls frame this seventeenth-century farm house set amid six acres of organically managed gardens and meadows. The owners, Gioia Browne and Jim Marsh, have enhanced this mature landscape by adding nine gardens and planting more than 300 trees and shrubs. Their collection is documented in a database that contains more than 2,000 species and cultivars from nearly 500 genera. The woodland garden flanking the nineteenth-century barn is planted with ferns, Jack-in-the-pulpits, a leatherwood (Dirca decipiens), and many woodland beauties under decades-old rhododendrons. Shaded by a white wisteria, the enchanting summer house terrace overlooks the rock garden with its bulbs, ferns, primroses, dwarf conifers, and ground covers.

In 2019, the rock garden was expanded and a circle garden was created. From April to November, the border blooms with tulips, allium, peonies, roses, clematis, annuals, dahlias, asters, and shrubs. Spring shades of orange, yellow, and red give way to a palette of blue, purple, yellow, and orange. Nearby are the shrub walk, overlook, cutting garden, and hydrangea bed. The bog garden features flood-tolerant natives including magnolia, carex, clethra, azaleas, and gentian. Every spring the resident frogs wake after a long winter to spend the summer in the lotus pool.

The spring garden is planted with snowdrops, pink daffodils, scilla, and other ephemerals. The treasured Edgeworthia chrysantha and Corylopsis pauciflora are sited to be seen from the house as they unfurl in early spring. Garden seating throughout enhances the appreciation of individual plants, insects, birds, and garden views.

Open Days 2021: Saturday, June 19
Hours: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

REGISTRATION
Members $5 per person; General admission $10. Children 12 and under free. 

Two golf carts will be available to drive around most of the garden.