Hillwood Museum and Gardens

Ivy clipped from Buckingham Palace is just one of the many unique attractions waiting to be discovered at Hillwood Museum and Gardens. American breakfast cereal heiress and gardening visionary Marjorie Merriweather Post acquired Hillwood in 1955 and began creating a series of pleasure gardens for her leisure and the entertainment of her guests.

She came up with the idea of a series of ‘outdoor rooms’ bordered by hedges or large plantings and containing statues, fountains and pools as focal points. The resulting 12-acres of formal gardens, which are surrounded by 13 acres of woodland, contain more than 3,500 varieties of plants and trees that are a delight to the eye and the imagination. Highlights include the French Parterre, Rose Garden, Lunar Lawn that was used for lavish parties and Japanese influenced garden with its miniature mountain and tumbling streams.

Because Mrs Post lived at Hillwood in the spring and autumn, the gardens feature plants that provide the greatest effect during these two seasons. Over 4,000 azaleas bloom in profusion through April and May, accompanied by hundreds of rhododendron, spirea, lilacs, and viburnum. From September to November, chrysanthemums join with the deciduous trees throughout the gardens to create a brilliant spectacle against the blaze of colours from the hardwood trees in the adjoining woodland. The choice of plants reveals Mrs Post’s preference for the newest and most unusual varieties available in the 1950s and 1960s.

The gardens are open Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 5pm, and closed in January and most national holidays. Admission is $12, $10 for senior citizens and $5 for children.

Tudor Place Garden

Thomas Peter, the son of a successful Scottish tobacco merchant, and his wife Martha Custis Peter, granddaughter of George and Martha Washington, purchased land in Georgetown in 1805 to build a grand house. They used an $8,000 legacy from the first US president and Tudor Place was completed in 1816, remaining under the ownership of six generations of the Peter family until 1983.

Steeped in history, the stately grounds of the Tudor Place estate include five acres of beautifully landscaped gardens, retaining the rolling green lawns, parterres and woodland developed by Thomas and Martha Peter, along with the elegant boxwood for which Tudor Place is renowned. The Peters originally planted the English Boxwood Ellipse as the focal point for the approach to the main entrance of the house, but during the Civil War trespassers plundered the boxwood for Christmas wreaths and in 1862 the remaining bushes were moved inside the garden for safekeeping.

The sloping South Lawn contains specimen trees planted in the early 19th century and visitors can see many wonderfully scented heirloom roses. Centrepiece of the Flower Knot is a sundial from Crossbasket Castle, the Scottish ancestral home of the Peter family.

You can’t miss the large tulip poplar in the southeast corner of the lawn, which is 20ft in circumference and over 100ft tall. In 2002 it was designated the Millennium Landmark Tree for the District of Columbia by the America the Beautiful Fund.

The garden is open daily, except national holidays, Monday to Saturday, 10am to 4pm, and admission is $2.