June 14
11:00 am - 4:00 pm
Flower lovers can take in a kaleidoscope of color when the Westport Historical Society hosts its 24th annual Hidden Garden Tour. This year’s edition will feature seven carefully landscaped and planted gardens, including one in neighboring Southport that is also the only cut flower farm in Fairfield County.
“We have a wide variety of gardens this year,” said tour co-chair Darcy Sledge, “from those planned and executed by professional landscape architects, to those nurtured over many years by owners experimenting with their properties. We have cutting gardens, woodland gardens, rose gardens, shade gardens, and one which I venture to call a ‘micro-garden.’ It is very small, but every square inch is meticulously planted with interesting combinations of plants, sculpture and stonework.”
Tour day will also see a Garden Market sprout on the WHS lawn from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Homegrown and homemade specialty items from local cottage businesses will be available to shoppers. Admission to the Garden Market is free.
A post-tour Garden Party will take place from 5:00 to 7:30 p.m. at Gilbertie’s Herb Gardens, 7 Sylvan Lane, Westport, with hors d’oeuvres by Westport caterer A Dash of Salt, wine, music and a silent auction. Items to go on the block include a two-night stay for two at the five-star Blantyre Relais Chateaux in the Berkshires, valued at $1,650, and an overnight at the Greenwich Hotel in Tribeca, valued at $700. The getaways are being provided by Farewell Travels in Westport. Also to be auctioned off are stays in a Washington, D.C., condo and Cape Cod home, a dinner prepared by a Cajun chef in a historic home, French pottery, and original art by Westport residents Charles Reid, Miggs Burroughs and Leonard Everett Fisher. Garden Party co-chair Jeff Kaufman said the paintings by Reid, author of 10 books on fine art painting, are valued at between $2,000 and $4,000. A Hat Competition for best gentleman’s, best lady’s, best use of fresh flowers, most creative and crowd favorite will liven up the festivities. For Garden Party Tickets, click here!
Three of the hidden gardens are on or just off North Avenue in the Coleytown section of Westport. Another, with grounds in a “lush English country style,” “a shady grotto” and “ancient, majestic and mature specimens throughout, stands atop Old Hill, and yet another, aptly named “Tidebrook,” sits beside a tidal stream. Still another, dubbed “Rosebrook Gardens,” boasts elements of an English garden “infused by the owner’s travels to a West Coast rainforest, the Italian countryside and Versailles.”
Rose gardens will be near their peak, and beds of lush New Dawns and David Austins will be the main attractions at two of the homes. Another, owned by a doctor who served with the U.S. military in Japan, is planted with bonsaied Japanese maple, cherry and weeping redbuds, and ornamental pines and broad leafed evergreens.
One of the Coleytown properties is described as a sloping wooded lot with lovely old stone walls, a pool, lawn sculptures and a fern walk along a pond, all on a landscape lovingly cared for by the owners since the 1970’s.
But the real stars of the show are the flowers: drifts of white daisies and frothy, chartreuse lady’s mantle, borders backstopped by spires of white aruncus and false astilbe, pink lupines and purple salvias, globes of purple allium, pink and white peonies and clumps of pink astrantia. The names alone are beautiful and inviting.
Westport was once an onion growing center, so it is fitting that one of the tour homes occupies a former onion farm. The setting is essentially woodland in character and notable for its many weeping trees. In early June, azaleas and rhododendrons paint the landscape with swaths of pink, yellow and orange.
There will be lessons to learn at a tour home planted with native, pollinator-attracting, drought-tolerant and disease-resistant species that provide a diverse and robust habitat for birds and bees.
Special features at some of the gardens include: ring toss, tea and granola tastings, Qi gong moving meditation demonstrations, and music by the Windflower Flutes ensemble.
Tour tickets are $45 members, $55 non-members, $60 day of tour. Garden Party tickets are $60 for both members and non-members. Combo tickets are $90 members, $100 non-members, $110 day of tour. Tickets and directions will be available for pick-up at WHS on the day of the tour starting at 10 a.m.
For those who prefer to peddle to the petals, the WHS has mapped out a bicycle route for the tour. Guests can also enter a drawing at WHS headquarters or at the Garden Party to win a new bicycle with basket and a subscription to flower arrangements from the Southport cut flower farm.
We thank our sponsors for supporting this event: Betty R. and Ralph Sheffer Foundation, Janet and Fred Plotkin/Adolph and Ruth Schnurmacher Foundation, Berchem, Moses & Devlin PC., Maplewood Senior Living, Sachs Walsh Insurance, Brown’s Monument Works, Moffly Media, Austin Ganim Landscape Designs LLC, , Oliver Nurseries & Design Associates, The Care of Trees, HTG Investment Advisors, Darton Insurance Co., A Dash of Salt, Darien Rowayton Bank, Connecticut Arborists, Inc., Law Offices of George P. Judd, LLC, Cycleology, Farewell Travels.Com, Connecticut Gardener Magazine
To buy tickets online, click here! BUY TICKETS or call 203-222-1424, or visit the Westport Historical Society.