Agecroft Hall

UK visitors will certainly experience a feeling of déjà vu and being back on home soil at Agecroft Hall, because standing on the banks of the James River is this truly remarkable Tudor estate. Originally built in Lancashire in the late 15th century, Agecroft fell into disrepair and was sold at auction in 1925. Richmonder Thomas C. Williams gave Agecroft a magnificent new lease of life in more ways than one when he bought the manor house, had it dismantled, crated and shipped across the Atlantic before painstakingly reassembling the building in its original splendour.

In keeping with the manor, Agecroft Hall’s grounds reflect the order and opulence of English country gardens. Designed by noted landscape architect Charles Gillette, the fragrant garden blooms with Elizabethan aromatics and the sunken garden, based on the pond garden at Hampton Court Palace, bursts with the colours of many annuals.

A walk through these gardens really feels like a stroll back in time, with the elaborately clipped herbs of the knot garden, a collection of exotic plants once recorded by Kent-born botanist and gardener John Tradescant the Younger - who visited Virginia between 1628-1637 to collect plants - plus a medicinal, flavouring and aromatic herb garden.

The gardens are open year-round, from 10am to 4pm Tuesday to Saturday, and 12.30pm to 5pm on Sunday. Closed on Mondays and national holidays. Admission, which includes an introductory film and guided tour of the house, is $8 for adults, $7 for senior citizens and $4 for children.

Ash Lawn-Highland

In 1793 the fifth US president James Monroe bought an estate next to Monticello, encouraged by his close friend and soon to be neighbour Thomas Jefferson. Monroe and his wife Elizabeth made it their official residence from 1799 to 1823 and while Monroe was away on presidential business Jefferson helped to plan the site and planted the orchards.

Ash Lawn-Highland’s ornamental and utilitarian gardens are a prime example of those planted in the early 1800s. As a lady of culture and refined taste, Mrs. Monroe needed not only fresh and dried flowers for bouquets but also herbs for cooking, scenting linens and repelling moths. Through trial and error she quickly discovered that some plants thrive in the rich, red Virginia earth, while others struggle and eventually die. Even the peacocks had their say in the eventual planting, as early bulbs and certain herbs and flowers are among their favourite snacks.

To feed the residents of Highland, which included frequent guests, up to 40 slaves and servants, the garden produced vegetables all year round. Visitors can see that edible legacy in the kitchen garden that is used to grow peas, beans, corn, squash, and other vegetables. Beyond the house they can stroll through the lovely 200-year-old boxwood gardens and admire the statue of its former owner.

Ash Lawn-Highland is open from 9am to 6pm, April to October, and 11am to 5pm, November to March, excluding Thanksgiving, Christmas day and New Year’s Day. Admission is $10, $9 for senior citizens and $5 for children.

Colonial Williamsburg

The hardest decision you’ll make in Colonial Williamsburg is deciding where to go first. In addition to the outstanding buildings, the Historic Area has collections of individual gardens and green spaces that complete the 18th century townscape. Whilst they are all different, many feature creative use of evergreen shrubs and distinctive ‘brickbat paving’, an early form of recycling using broken and unwanted bricks from colonial estates.

The grandest garden can be found at the Governor’s Palace. It was considered so extravagant in its day that members of the Williamsburg General Assembly complained about the amount of public money spent on it. Another prickly subject at the garden is the intricate holly maze. Those who don’t fancy getting lost can stand on the mount and watch other visitors trying to find their way out.

Other notable gardens include John Blair House, with its ever-changing beds of flowers and culinary and medicinal herbs. The Taliaferro-Cole garden is known for its unusual picket fence and knotty sycamore trees, achieved by a pruning technique.

The Colonial Nursery is an interpretive centre and shop with garden historians on site to answer questions about 18th century horticultural practices and the history of green-fingered colonial nurserymen.

To make the most of your visit pick up a Colonial Williamsburg Admission Pass. The passes are available for one or more days, with special rates for guests staying in local hotels, and they include access to as many as 20 to 40 Historic Area buildings, depending on the season, and admission to all the gardens.

Ferry Farm & Historic Kenmore

Ferry Farm is the Stafford County boyhood home of George Washington. Although his father, Augustine Washington, owned several farms, Ferry Farm was the Washingtons’ principal residence for most of George’s boyhood. Today it is a fascinating and active archaeological site. In 2009 the archaeology lab will be busy with last year’s discoveries. The archaeology dig site will open again in 2010. Although there are no buildings on the property that were present in Washington’s day, guides are on hand to interpret the latest findings to the public, including the 2008 discovery of the remains of the Washingtons’ house, and bring the history of the estate and gardens to life. A self-guided walking tour is available and gives the visitor the opportunity to experience at their leisure the land Washington knew as a child.

The garden at Ferry Farm includes a wide variety of plants that would typically have been grown during George Washington’s time, including tobacco, cotton and corn, and the entire property is a wildlife habitat and home to a variety of plants, birds and animals.

Visitors to Ferry Farm can also visit Kenmore, the Fredericksburg house built by George Washington’s sister Betty Washington Lewis and her husband, Fielding Lewis. Kenmore was the inspiration and first beneficiary of Virginia’s Historic Garden Week. In 1932 the Garden Club of Virginia completed a renovation of Kenmore’s gardens. A tree-covered lawn dominates the front while the rear of the property has a beautiful boxwood-edged garden. The Wilderness Walk leads visitors past native-American plants that were particularly popular in Washington’s time.

Ferry Farm and Kenmore are open daily, except Thanksgiving, Dec. 24, 25, 31, and Jan. 1, from 10am to 5pm, November through December, and 10am to 5pm, March through October. A combination ticket to both sites costs $11.

Gunston Hall

The words of patriot and statesman George Mason have inspired generations of Americans and others throughout the world. Mason was among the first to call for basic liberties as freedom of the press, religious tolerance and the right to a trial by jury. Although he was instrumental in the shaping of the US government he shied away from public office himself and preferred to manage his 550-acre estate beside the Potomac River, which is now a National Historic Landmark.

The mid-18th century plantation house is an outstanding example of colonial Georgian architecture and Mason’s garden was the crowning glory of the property. Archaeologists have been carrying out painstaking research in the formal gardens, currently in a state of transition from a mid-20th century ‘colonial revival’ garden to one resembling Mason’s original plans. Much like his neighbour George Washington at Mount Vernon, Mason also had a keen interest in plants and oversaw the management of his plantation and took a real ‘hands on’ interest.

He was particularly partial to English boxwood and visitors can stroll through the central boxwood allée, the impressive shrub lined promenade believed to have been planted during Mason’s residence, and enjoy views of the Potomac River and surrounding woods from his garden overlook. The garden leads down the banks of the river and a short distance from the house is the Mason family graveyard.

Gunston Hall is open from 9.30am to 5pm daily, except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. Admission is $9, $8 for senior citizens and $5 for children.

James Madison’s Montpelier

Visitors can follow in the gardening footsteps of the fourth US president James Madison at Montpelier, the estate originally established by his father in 1764. Known as the ‘Father of the Constitution’ for his dedicated work on the US Constitution, it was at Montpelier where he read, contemplated and conceived the foundation of the American democracy.

Montpelier is spread over 2,650 acres of rolling hills and green pastures, with spectacular views of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Garden lovers can stroll around two acres of delightful formal garden, originally designed by the Madison's French gardener Bizet, and filled with many varieties of bearded and Japanese iris, daylilies and peonies. A landmark is the graceful, classical temple, now used as the symbol of Montpelier, where Madison would spend many hours thinking through political issues.

After a garden visit allow plenty of time to stretch your legs in the 200-acre James Madison Landmark Forest, named as one of the region’s best examples of a mature forest. Some of the oaks, poplars, and hickories are between 200 to 300-years-old and due to the rich Virginia soil the tulip trees have reached heights of up to 120ft and red oaks just under 100ft. They can be admired along two miles of trails and there are guided forest tours available from April to October.

Montpelier is open daily, except Thanksgiving and Christmas, from 9.30am to 5.30pm, April to October, and 9.30am to 4.30pm, November to March. Admission is $14 and $7 for children.

Lee-Fendall House & Garden

Small is beautiful at the Lee-Fendall House, an urban plantation house built in 1785 that is a showcase of American history. The white clapperboard building has variously served as a home to 37 members of the Lee family and hundreds of convalescing Union soldiers during the American Civil War.

Complementing the house is the beautifully restored award-winning garden. Development of the half-acre garden began in 1974 as a labour of love by the Alexandria Council Garden Clubs. A rose garden grows many varieties of heritage roses spanning the years 1842-1893 and the herb garden recalls the days when herbs were used for medicine, insect repellents and fragrances as well as for flavouring food. Many of the English boxwoods lining the brick path were nurtured from tiny sprigs saved from traditional boxwood Christmas wreaths and squirrels, the symbol of the Lee family, scamper across the lawn.

Trees of particular interest in the garden are the black walnut and the ginkgo - one of the oldest species in the plant kingdom - as well as a magnificent magnolia grandiflora, which was planted in around 1852. Beneath the magnolia visitors can glimpse of the tombstone of Eleanor Fendall, the mother of Philip R. Fendall who built Lee-Fendall House. The stone was saved from destruction and brought to the property in her memory.

The house and garden is open on every Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, from 10am to 4pm and on Wednesday and Sunday from 1pm to 4pm. Admission, including a guided tour or the house, is $4.

Monticello

No garden enthusiast should miss Monticello, the stunning hilltop estate and historic house featured on the back of the US nickel coin that was home to the third US president Thomas Jefferson. A keen horticulturist since his teens, Jefferson became an astute observer of the natural world, scientist and gardener and Monticello became a botanic showpiece, source of food and an experimental laboratory of plants and fruits from around the world.

Jefferson’s eight-acre fruit garden, or fruitery as he called it, was part of his amazing garden laboratory. He cultivated over 150 varieties of 31 species of fruit so he could sample the “precious refreshment” and see peaches and Virginia cider apples growing alongside French apricots and Spanish almonds, to name just a few.

In the 1,000ft garden terrace he grew over 330 vegetable varieties and now the restored vegetable garden is both a snapshot of the typical vegetable garden of the day and an expression of Jefferson's ambitious planting schemes.

Jefferson particularly loved trees and he designed Monticello Grove to be an ornamental forest where he and his guests could visit his “pet trees”. The restored oval beds and roundabout borders of his flower gardens are another highlight. Jefferson received a yearly shipment of up to 700 species of seeds from the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, many of which provide the basis for the wonderful flower garden that can be enjoyed today.

Monticello is open daily, except Christmas, from 8am to 5pm March to October and 9am to 4.30pm November to February. Adult admission is $15 and $8 for children.

Mount Vernon

Mount Vernon was the beloved home of George and Martha Washington from the time of their marriage in 1759 until his death in 1799. Forty-five acres of the estate are open to the public and they reflect the first president’s love of trees and flowers.

A stroll around the four gardens will transport visitors back in time as they discover heirloom plants known to have been at Mount Vernon in the late 1700s. Many of the trees were actually planted by Washington, including white ash, American holly, English mulberry, flowering dogwood and tulip poplar and 13 still stand today as the last living witnesses of his lifetime.

The Upper Garden includes a wide variety of flowers and trees, boxwood planted in Washington's day, and vegetable beds. Based on careful archaeological excavations the beds have been restored to their original size. The Lower Garden supplied fresh produce for the busy Mount Vernon kitchen and vegetables and herbs are grown in the beds today, as well as cherry, apple and other fruit trees.

Washington used the Fruit Garden and nursery to experiment with new seeds and plants before using them elsewhere on the estate. He attempted to grow grapes in its well-cultivated beds and produced nursery plants for use across Mount Vernon. Visitors can gain a fascinating insight into the estate by joining one of the garden and landscape walking tours offered three times daily from April to October.

Mount Vernon is open daily, including holidays and Christmas, from 8am to 5pm, April to August, 9am to 5pm, March, September & October, and 9am to 4pm, November to February. Admission is $15 for adults, $14 for senior citizens and $7 for children.

Museum of the Shenandoah Valley & Glen Burnie Historic House & Gardens

The spectacle that awaits visitors to the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley is pretty as a picture in more ways than one. The largest green space in the City of Winchester, the museum complex includes the Glen Burnie Historic House, six acres of spectacular gardens, and the $20 million Museum of the Shenandoah Valley. Opened in 2005, the museum charts the art, history and culture of the great valley after which it was named, and includes an impressive art collection with many works by illustrious British painters such as Constable, Gainsborough and Reynolds that will be of great interest to UK visitors.

The 18th century house, a short walking distance from the museum, was home to generations of the Wood and Glass families for more than two centuries. It has been preserved exactly as it was when the last family member lived there and includes magnificent 18th and 19th century furniture and fine art collected by Julian Wood Glass Jr. (1910-1992), an avid private collector who also owned much of the art on show in the museum.

Outside, the landscape around Glen Burnie showcases everything from intimate garden rooms to a magnificent grand allée. Created in the late 20th century, the 14 formal gardens include numerous fountains and water features, sculpture, follies and the historic family cemetery.

The museum is open year-round, from 10am to 4pm Tuesday to Sunday. Closed on Monday; Thanksgiving Day; and December 24, 25, 31 and January 1. The house and gardens are open from March to November. A combination ticket, for the museum, house and gardens, is $12 for adults and $10 for senior citizens and children. Individual tickets, such as gardens only, are also available.

Oatlands Gardens

Young bachelor George Carter, a descendant of one of Virginia’s first families, founded Oatlands Plantation in 1798. He designed and built his mansion and gardens in the style of Tidewater, Virginia, and its English settlers.

As a result visitors will find the elegant formal garden close to the house, while the rest of the garden is made up of a series of terraces carved into the hillside to provide level areas for abundant plantings of fruit, vegetables, trees, shrubs, and flowers. Linked by steps cut from locally quarried stone, and surrounded by walls made from bricks fired on the plantation and indigenous stone, Carter designed his garden to combine beauty with his philosophy of self-sufficiency.

In later years the garden fell into a neglected state and in 1923 the new owner, Edith Eustis, set about restoring the estate to its previous beauty. At the time she said: “It was a thankful task to restore the old beauty, although the thoughts and conceptions were new, they fitted it. And every stone vase or bench, every box-hedge planted, seemed to fall into its rightful place and become a part of the whole”. Many of Carter’s plantings survive today, including towering American boxwood, English boxwood and a European larch that stands by the garden gate. Another of his trees, a mighty English oak, retains a majestic position in the centre of the garden.

The gardens at Oatlands Plantation are open from 10 am to 5 pm, Monday to Saturday, and 1pm to 5pm on Sunday, from March 30 to December 30 excluding Thanksgiving and Christmas. Admission to the gardens and grounds only is $7.

Plantation Gardens

History blooms in the gardens of the many plantations homes that line the James River. Surrounded by vast tracts of arable land, the plantation owners created idyllic private retreats where they could enjoy the splendours of nature with their family and entertain visiting friends. Three of the finest can be found at the Berkeley, Brandon and Westover plantations.

Berkeley, Virginia’s most historic plantation, features five terraced gardens that were dug before the Revolutionary War. Flowers bloom from spring through to autumn and many 100-year old trees grace the restored boxwood garden offering breathtaking views of the river and benches are arranged throughout the gardens so visitors can enjoy this delightful and peaceful setting.

Brandon Plantation’s history dates to the very beginning of the English settlement in America and was originally a vast land grant to John Martin, companion of Captain John Smith, on his first voyage to America. One of the most magnificent of the James River estates the grounds, laid out as a series of ‘outdoor rooms’ extend from the mansion house to the river.

Westover is one of the most elegant colonial plantations, established in 1730 by William Byrd II, founder of Richmond and Petersburg. The lawn, shaded by 150-year-old tulip poplars, offers a commanding view of the river and unusual garden features include a dry well with passageways leading under the house and to the river, originally built as an escape route from intruders. It also boasts a pair of the finest early-18th century wrought iron gates in the country.

Berkeley Plantation is open daily, excluding Thanksgiving and Christmas, from 9am to 5pm. Admission is $11 for adults, $7.50 for students and $6 for children.

Brandon Plantation and Westover Plantation are open daily. Since the admission fee varies, please contact the plantations directly.

Virginia House

Next door to Agecroft Hall is another reconstructed gem. Virginia House, originally a 12th century Warwickshire priory, was also dismantled and brought to Richmond in 1925, where it was lovingly redesigned and rebuilt, complete with extensive gardens by the renowned Charles Gillette, a name synonymous with the best landscape design in Virginia. The property was awarded a medallion commendation by the Virginia Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects in 2000, one of few properties in Virginia to receive this prestigious award.

Gillette created a series of terraces to deal with the steep pitch of the land and it took eight years to create the picturesque gardens. By 1930 the old bricks used to build walls were festooned with vines, roses and creeping fig to reinforce the feeling of great age. From the formal spring tulip displays in the Four Season’s garden to the natural plantings in the bog garden, the grounds at Virginia House provide a rich tapestry of texture and colour throughout the year.

Close to 1,000 types of ornamental plants now thrive throughout the gardens. Extensive English and American boxwood plantings lend structure and create a sense of mystery and tranquillity. Hollies, southern magnolia and red cedar frame the distant views while closer to the house, wisteria, roses and climbing hydrangea drape balconies and garden rails.

The house and gardens are open 10am to 4pm, Friday and Saturday, and 12.30pm to 5pm on Sunday, except public holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Admission is $5, $4 for seniors and $3 for children, which includes a house tour.