Still Monday: Long Hill and Sedgwick Gardens

We arrived home from Maine via Boston late Saturday night. I fell behind in posting as we were traveling, and then I was unable to post due to poor Internet connection. This post is still from last Monday.

As I have time I will be sorting through photos  and posting more from our trip. We had a great time, and now are glad to be home.


The fourth destination on our Monday tour was the Long Hill Estate and the surrounding Sedgwick Gardens. From the Internet:

In 1916, this 114-acre hillside property attracted Atlantic Monthly editor and publisher Ellery Sedgwick and his wife for its lovely views of the rural North Shore. But Mabel Cabot Sedgwick, an accomplished gardener and horticulturist, had more ambitious – and aesthetic – ideas.

As the couple formulated plans for the elegant Federal-style home that would become their summer retreat, Mabel Sedgwick also set about designing gardens and landscape amenities that are renowned a century later.

After her death in 1937, her vision was sustained and expanded by the second Mrs. Sedgwick, the former Marjorie Russell, a rare plants specialist, who added new and rare species of trees and shrubs to the estate, some introduced by the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain.

This copper beech tree opposite the front door is wondrously huge and spreading.

Roses on the arches would have been beautiful in early summer.

 Colchicum were blooming all over the garden. This double flowering variety is especially lovely. 

 A trough garden

Tom especially enjoyed the specimen trees in the garden.

 

Many plants here are labeled, and the garden would be great for a horticultural study. I just enjoyed strolling in it.