Letter of Recommendation: This Is How to Get Invited to the Best Private Gardens

Years ago, while sitting in the garden of Hidcote Manor in the Cotswolds, I got to chatting with two other American women. I lamented that there weren’t more private gardens to visit in the States. “Oh, but there are,” insisted one of the women: “They’re just not open to the public daily like this. You have to go on Open Days.”

It would be another five years before I actually got to an Open Day, and it was only by chance that I saw the sign and pulled over to see what the “garden tour” was. Ten dollars and a conversation with a nice volunteer later, I was strolling through a stranger’s very lovely garden. I was hooked.

Open Days are run by The Garden Conservancy, a non-profit organization committed to preserving, sharing, and celebrating America’s gardens. Since 1995, the Garden Conservancy has coordinated what it calls Open Days, designated days and times when homeowners generously share their private gardens with the public for a modest fee (it’s a fundraiser for the Conservancy). It is a wildly successful program: According to the Garden Conservancy, the Open Days program has opened the doors to more than 4,500 gardens to 1.5 million visitors.

I’ve read books galore on garden design, but I’ve learned the most from snooping around in other people’s gardens. Actually seeing the layers in a border or how things are planted as a soft landing beneath mature trees is much more helpful than a photo can ever be. Plus, homeowners are often on hand to answer questions. And it’s not just the plantings that offer inspiration: I’ve even gotten ideas for a prettier way to store a hose or a better hook to hang large tools. What I love most, though, about Open Days is just being immersed in these beautiful gardens for an afternoon, which is all the more delicious because it feels like a secret.

Open Days visits have also become something of a cross-generation family bonding experience. My son, who claims not to like visiting gardens, often gets just as swept up in a place as I do. (He was particularly enamored with the treehouse at Edwina Von Gal’s Marshouse and the epic chicken coop at Bunny Williams’ Connecticut spread). My aunt and cousin have timed their visits to Open Days weekends near my parents house, and we’ve all gone garden visiting together.

Each year the Garden Conservancy sends its members a printed book of all the Open Days. I’ll comb through it and write the dates into my calendar, planning my own weekend getaways around when I might visit a garden. Take a look to see if The Garden Conservancy hosts Open Days in your region. I promise you, it’ll be worth the visit.

See also:

• Good for You: Donate to These Organizations That Make Our World Greener and More Beautiful
• How to Get Inside America’s Secret Gardens

And here’s an Open Days garden that I recently wrote about:

• ‘A Moment in Time’: Landscape Designer Kathryn Herman’s Country Garden in Fairfield, CT.