Enjoy the beauty of the Florence Griswold Museum’s historic gardens this Sunday.

Fourteen sites throughout the state celebrate with special programs

The Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme is one of 14 of the state’s beautiful sites that have joined to form Connecticut’s Historic Gardens.  This coming Sunday, June 22, from noon to 4 p.m, each site will offer special activities emphasizing their garden program for CT Historic Gardens Day.

The gardens are a-bloom at the Florence Griswold Museum.

These delightful places, scattered throughout the state, offer visitors an opportunity to explore a  variety of garden styles and time periods.

The sites are: Florence Griswold Museum Old Lyme

At the Museum, outdoor activities are free from 1 to 5 p.m. Visitors are invited to stroll through “Miss Florence’s” historic gardens and watch members of the Connecticut Society of Portrait Artists as they work on paintings featuring models posed in the gardens and along the river. Painting materials will be supplied so that visitors can try their hand at creating their own masterpieces. Families can go on the new garden scavenger hunt. Museum admission applies to House and galleries.

The Bellamy-Ferriday House & Garden Bethlehem

Stroll through the circa 1915 formal garden and landscaped grounds of the Ferriday Garden. Guides will be on hand to share informative and often amusing excerpts from Caroline Ferriday’s garden notebooks that illustrate her interests and concerns about the plants she chose for the garden and their care. Check out the plants for sale, the art exhibit featured in the visitor center and sip a glass of switchel, a recipe Miss Ferriday copied from the Boston Herald. “There’s nothing like switchel to allay thirst and generate optimism.” Ice tea will also be on hand. Grounds admission is free; regular admission applies for historic house tour.

Butler-McCook House & Garden Hartford

Stroll through the 1865 Jacob Weidenmann-designed Victorian garden where staff will tell the story of its history and answer questions. Enjoy a glass of lemonade and the Main Street History Center exhibition. Grounds free; regular admission applies for historic house tour.

Glebe House Museum & The Gertrude Jekyll Garden Woodbury

Garden tours led by garden volunteers “Gertrude’s Gardeners.” Enjoy lemonade and cookies and browse garden books, plants from the garden, and garden related items for sale. Enjoy a presentation about the discovery of the Jekyll Garden plans and how the garden came to be. We are celebrating the 85^th anniversary of Miss Jekyll’s garden plan and the 20th year since its installation.

Harkness Memorial State Park (pictured above) Waterford

Garden tours and talks about the history and Beatrix Farrand design of the Harkness gardens provided free of charge by Park Staff and Friends of Harkness volunteers. In addition, take a tour of the mansion from 10am to 2pm, visit the Gift Shop, or enjoy some refreshments with spectacular views of Long Island Sound.

Harriet Beecher Stowe Center Hartford

Grounds admission is free; regular admission applies for historic

house and garden tour. For Stowe’s bicentennial, treat yourself to a guided tour of her charming Victorian Gothic revival home, surrounded by ever-blooming gardens. The historic gardens are open for strolling every day.

Don’t miss a visit to the Stowe Center Museum Store for books and garden treasures. House and Garden tours offered every half hour. Find your favorite spot in the garden – watercolors, paper and brushes are on hand so you can tap into your inner artist and paint en plein air!

Hill-Stead Museum Farmington

Stroll the paths of Hill-Stead’s c. 1920 Beatrix Farrand-designed Sunken Garden, admire heirloom plants and consult with interpreters and master gardeners. A wedding in the Sunken Garden requires visitors to clear the garden by 2 pm. Ice-cold lemonade available from 2-4pm in the Kitchen Garden.

New London County Historical Society and Shaw Mansion New London

Included in the regular admission price are special tours and lectures. In the morning, Connecticut Master Gardeners provide tours of the Shaw Mansion Garden. In the afternoon, Miss Perkins and some of her friends from the 1860s return to her garden with some period music and to offer a guided tour sharing, “the Language of Flowers.” Presentations will be scheduled on the Shaw Mansion-Woodbridge Farm connection, and on the surprising connection between the Shaw Mansion gardens and famed modernist landscape designer Christopher Tunnard. Strawberry shortcake available.

Osborne Homestead Museum Derby

After strolling through the museum’s lovely Colonial Revival gardens, visitors can enjoy the historic house museum and learn about Frances Osborne Kellogg’s passion for gardening and conservation. Complimentary museum and garden tours will be offered every half hour on the hour.

Promisek at Three Rivers Farm Bridgewater

In 1921 Beatrix Farrand designed a formal garden on this property for Dr. Frederick Peterson, a noted New York neurologist, who entertained family, friends and clients on his country estate, which he called Three Rivers Farm.  By the time the 300-acre tract was acquired in 1978 by Promisek, all traces of the garden’s former glory had been buried under years of overgrowth. In 1992 a local resident and garden historian  rediscovered the historic value of the walled garden, and a restoration began using the plan found in the Farrand archives at the University of California at Berkeley. Come visit us in the garden and discover this unearthed treasure.

Roseland Cottage Woodstock

From 1-4 enjoy a guided tour of the garden and learn the history, significance, and theory behind the Roseland Cottage garden layout and design, including Historic New England’s on-going boxwood restoration project.  Tours on the hour. Free admission.

Thankful Arnold House Museum Haddam

Scents and Sachets!  Visitors to the Wilhelmina Ann Arnold Barnhart Memorial Garden learn how the Widow Thankful Arnold used herbs in the early 19th century for medicinal, household and culinary purposes.  The garden features over 50 varieties of herbs including many that were used to make an early American home smell sweeter.  We invite guests to make a scented sachet, complete an herb scavenger hunt and enjoy light refreshments.  The garden and museum are free between 12 noon and 4 pm.

Webb Deane Stevens Museum Wethersfield

Visitors enjoy a free garden tour focusing on the architect, Amy Cogswell, and the history of the garden. Master gardeners and other garden volunteers are on hand to answer questions on the garden. Garden visitors receive a coupon for $1 off the three house tours (regularly $10 for a one hour tour). The highlight is the Webb House, where George Washington met with the Comte de Rochambeau to plan the siege of Yorktown, which ended the Revolutionary War. Tea, lemonade and homemade cookies will be served.

Weir Farm National Historic Site Wilton

Weir Farm’s Garden Gang volunteers offer short informal talks in the Sunken Garden and Secret Garden about the gardens’ history, flowers, restoration, and ongoing preservation. In addition to the talks, visitors can spend an afternoon painting in the landscape. Experience first-hand the fun of creating art in a landscape that has inspired artists for over 125 years. Watercolor supplies available at no charge from 1:00 to 4:00 PM. The colonial revival Sunken Garden and the Secret Garden, which was created in 1915 and features a fountain, sundial, and rustic cedar fence, appear today just as they did to J. Alden Weir and the other artists that made this farm their home.

For more information, visit http://www.florencegriswoldmuseum.org