Gardens
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Estate Overview
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French Parterre
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Rose Garden
Lunar Lawn
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Japanese-Style Garden
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Greenhouses
Cutting Garden
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Other Points of Interest
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Seasonal Interest
The cutting garden, located across from the greenhouses, was installed for
the very utilitarian purpose of providing a succession of seasonal blooms
for floral arrangements to decorate the rooms of the mansion. In keeping
with Marjorie Merriweather Post’s desire to beautify the mansion with fresh flowers in perpetuity,
the cutting garden continues to yield bountiful quantities of blooms
that are combined in arrangements of the style popular in the 1950s
and 1960s.
In March and April, tulips, daffodils, and sweetpeas are united with
boughs cut from azaleas, lilacs, and spirea to create stunning, fragrant
arrangements. Peonies, old-fashioned roses, larkspur, and foxglove
soon follow to be blended with snapdragons and bells of Ireland from
the greenhouse. In June, summer perennials of salvia, yarrow, veronica,
and shasta daisy take over, enhanced by seasonal annuals of zinnias,
marigolds, snapdragons, dahlias, and gladioli. October heralds the
end of the summer blooms, but varieties of chrysanthemums complete
the cutting garden season through November with a fragrant presentation
of autumnal flowers for the mansion.
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