Each garden is decidedly private yet connected to adjacent gardens through subtle transitional features. The layout reflects not only the design vocabulary of notable landscape architects, but it also includes the distinctive taste of Marjorie Merriweather Post. The twelve acres of formal gardens and grounds are surrounded by thirteen acres of woodland that are strategically nestled against Rock Creek Park, creating a rural ambiance.

 
Marjorie Merriweather Post planted mature trees and shrubs so that the gardens looked as if they had been established decades earlier, lending an appropriate sense of scale and age to complement the house and the existing landscape. She built extensive planting beds under established shade trees and filled them with spring-flowering trees and conifers, as well as spring-flowering and evergreen shrubs. Spring-blooming perennials, annuals, and bulbs were planted to peek out from the skirts of the shrubs lining the walks.

 
Because Marjorie Merriweather Post was in residence at Hillwood during the spring and autumn seasons when the Washington climate is most pleasant, the gardens feature plants that offer the greatest effect in spring and fall. Over 4,000 azaleas bloom in profusion through April and May, accompanied by hundreds of rhododendron, spirea, lilacs, and viburnum. The blooms of redbuds, cherries, magnolias, dogwoods, and crabapples add splashes of color above, while tulips, daffodils, forget-me-nots, primroses, and pansies sparkle below. The collection of plants reveals Mrs. Post's preference for the newest and most unusual varieties available in the 1950s and 1960s. In September through November, chrysanthemums join with the deciduous trees throughout the gardens to create a brilliant spectacle against the blaze of colors from the hardwood trees in the adjacent forest.

 
Marjorie Merriweather Post also sought to bring the beauty of the garden indoors, and she filled every room in her home with fresh flowers. In addition to cutting boughs from trees and shrubs in bloom, she established a cutting garden and expanded the greenhouses, providing a ceaseless source of fresh-cut flowers and exotic blooms. The cutting garden continues to bestow an abundance of flowers that embellish the mansion today, and the greenhouses still support her collection of over 2,500 orchids, some of which are displayed in the mansion throughout the year.

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