Cylburn Arboretum

In 1863 Jesse Tyson, a Baltimore businessman and importer, built Cylburn Mansion as a summer home for his mother and himself. Today the luxurious post Civil War mansion and estate is Baltimore City’s horticultural headquarters and home to the Cylburn Arboretum.

The Cylburn Arboretum Association set out to preserve the mansion’s historic grounds and although the 207-acre park is located within the city boundaries it has the feeling of an estate set in rolling countryside. The arboretum has an extensive and constantly expanding collection of trees and shrubs based on the original Tyson estate plantings and some of the trees planted by the original owner still stand on the lawns.

Collections of Japanese maples, hollies, conifers, Maryland oaks, beeches, tree peonies, maples and magnolias can be admired around the house, and trails wind through the woodlands where rare trees, native plants and wildflowers can be seen.

Cylburn features a variety of attractive gardens, including the All America Selections Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Heritage Rose Garden. These are complemented by several memorial gardens, such as the Butterfly Garden and the Formal Garden. The Garden of the Senses features waist height blooms so wheelchair visitors can touch and smell the plants easily and youngsters enjoy the Children’s Garden complete with a schoolhouse and bell.

Due to open in summer 2009, the arboretum’s newest attraction will be an eco-friendly visitor centre with geothermal heating and cooling and other green features.

The arboretum and grounds are open dawn to dusk year round. Please note, they are currently closed until work on the new visitor centre is complete. Log onto the website for the latest update.

Ladew Topiary Gardens

Nature is full of surprises but you’d be forgiven for thinking your eyes are deceiving you at Ladew Topiary Gardens. A hunt in full flight with horses, riders, hounds and a fox clearing a hedge, a Chinese junk with sails, swans and a giraffe are among the many incredible and often comical scenes that await visitors to Ladew.

Numerous visits to England inspired larger than life character, keen huntsman and self-taught gardener Harvey S. Ladew to create 13 themed garden areas on 22-acres of his Maryland property. Garden rooms - devoted to a single colour, a single plant or a single theme - were all the rage in England in the 1920s when Ladew embarked on numerous foxhunting visits. He was among the first Americans to recreate them on this side of the Atlantic. He also discovered the English art of topiary when he saw a clipped hunt scene atop a hedge in Gloucestershire and this resulted in the best-known feature at Ladew.

The topiaries are an absolute delight and Ladew’s vibrant personality is reflected in the unique design of his garden. He would doubtless be thrilled to know that The Garden Club of America has described Ladew as “the most outstanding topiary garden in America.”

The gardens are open from the end of March to October from 10am to 4pm, Monday to Friday, 10.30am to 4pm, Saturday and Sunday. Admission to the gardens and nature walk is $10 for adults, $8 for senior citizens and students and $2 for children.

McCrillis Gardens

Bethesda in Maryland might not be the best-known place on the tourist circuit but it is one of the more charming and unique. It doesn’t have hundreds of attractions like Baltimore or Annapolis, but for visitors who want to venture off the beaten track and track down some undiscovered gems Bethesda is home to an unusual garden that is well worth a visit, especially if you want to get out of the sunshine for a while.

Once the home of William McCrillis, an assistant to the Secretary of the Interior during three administrations, the five-acre gardens were bequeathed to the state before his death in 1978. Now managed by Brookside Gardens, McCrillis is out of the ordinary because it is a shade garden. Choice ornamental trees and shrubs extend the flowering season while bulbs, groundcovers and shade-loving perennials add ongoing colour and texture. A pavilion and benches provide restful vantage points in this relaxing garden.

The Brookside Gardens School of Botanical Art and Illustration is located inside the McCrillis House. The School offers a carefully designed curriculum presented by experienced artist/teachers and is lead by the school’s director, Margaret Saul, a botanical artist known internationally for her art and teaching of this genre. Ms. Saul based the school’s program on one she developed when establishing her own successful botanical art school in Australia.

The gardens are open daily from 10am to sunset and admission is free.

Sherwood Gardens

Tulip lovers won’t want to miss Sherwood Gardens, a unique example of a real community garden that can be found in the Guilford neighbourhood of northern Baltimore. During the 1800s the land on which the gardens are located was part of the Guilford estate of A. S. Abell, founder of The Baltimore Sun newspaper. The site of the gardens was a pond, which was filled in when the area was developed for housing in 1912.

In the 1920s local petroleum pioneer and conservationist John W. Sherwood started creating the gardens that can be seen today. Begun as a hobby, Sherwood started planting tulips that he imported from the Netherlands. Now the gardens have become known as the most famous tulip garden in North America. And after the tulips finish blooming residents can dig up and purchase tulip bulbs.

Covering more than six acres, 80,000 tulip bulbs are planted annually along with other spring flowering bulbs. Dogwoods, flowering cherries, wisteria and magnolias bloom throughout the garden. Visitors can also enjoy the bright azaleas and old English boxwoods that were particular favourites of Sherwood. Some of these plants date back as far as the 18th century, collected from gardens of Colonial estates in southern Maryland.

Adding to the beauty and uniqueness of the present day garden are numerous varieties of rare trees and during the mid-summer months the beds of the gardens are planted with masses of annuals. The gardens have no gates, fences or admission charge and visitors and locals are welcome to stroll through the gardens at leisure. The gardens are located one block east of the 4100 block of St. Paul Street and are bounded by East Highfield Road, Underwood Road, Stratford Road and the Greenway.