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
Shortly
after Marjorie Merriweather Post acquired Hillwood in 1955, she sought
a landscape architect to help her create a rose garden where a wooden
pergola draped with climbing roses already existed. She hired Perry Wheeler,
a young landscape architect from the Washington, D.C. area, who had
assisted with the design and implementation of the rose garden at the
White House. Mr. Wheeler was best known for his innovative use of paving,
creating intricate patterns in paths and walks using a variety of materials.
The
rose garden is built in a circular shape to join the curving pergola
with the north side of the new garden. The east and west sides are
planted with American boxwood hedges, while the south side of the
garden opens to terraced stone steps leading to the putting green.
The garden is designed with a round bed in the center, encircled by
four crown-shaped and eight crescent-shaped beds along the outside
edge. The beds are divided by paths, which are patterned with brick
and stone inlays. Mahogany benches, custom-built for Mrs. Post, are
placed under the shade of the pergola for guests to relax and enjoy
the view before them.
Each
bed in this garden is planted with a separate variety of floribunda
roses, which flower in May and are in bloom with the climbing roses
that scale the pergola. Long after the climbing roses are finished,
the floribundas continue to bloom through the summer, and sweet alyssum
is added to line the edges, fragrancing the entire garden. In April,
before the roses come into bloom, a different variety of Emperor tulips
blooms in each bed to complement the early flowering shrubs surrounding
the rose garden. The center bed, lined with a tightly trimmed English
boxwood hedge and filled with seasonal flowers, is the site of Mrs.
Posts memorial monument.
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