My Favorite Gardens

This week I'd like to share some of my paintings of the gardens that I have visited and enjoyed painting. I love to paint en plein air at all types of places, including urban landscapes, beaches, lakes, fields and farms, but I love painting beautiful gardens the best of all. When the daffodils come out and hail the beginning of spring, I get excited by the bright cheerful colors that pop up among the dull browns left from winter's cold embrace. As soon as the weather permits, I'm hunting for garden spots all over the state. Here are a few wonderful places that I've visited lately.

The Pardee Rose Garden

The Pardee Rose Garden in Hamden is a hidden gem. It's small, just about two acres, but the roses are not to be missed. It's quiet and somewhat hidden, but a wonderful secluded place to paint, draw, or just take a stroll. The garden is sectioned off with stretches of wild and hybrid roses and other flowering plants. The park established in 1922 was a gift from William S. Pardee. It is part of Edgerton park and is maintained by the city of New Haven.

Harkness Memorial State Park

I often go to paint at Harkness Memorial State Park in Waterford. There are several gardens to choose from and they all have their distinctive design. The scene here is the Duck Boy fountain in the West Garden. The gardens are maintained by the state with the help of many volunteers.

The mansion, ‘Eolia’ named for the island home of the Greek god of winds, was built in 1906 and purchased by Edward and Mary Harkness in 1907. The 200+ acres were a working farm and the Mansion was the Harkness’ summer home.

From 1918 to 1929, Beatrix Jones Farrand (landscape designer, one of the founders of the American Society of Landscape Architects) redesigned the west garden and created and installed the East Garden, the Boxwood Parterre and the Alpine Rock Garden.

Elizabeth Park Rose Garden

The Elizabeth Park Rose Garden, located in Hartford, is a great place to paint if you love roses. The arches are in full bloom in mid-June into early July, and are just spectacular.

The Helen S Kaman Rose Garden is the center of Elizabeth Park. It is the first municipal rose garden in the United States and the third largest rose garden in the country.

Elizabeth Park's Rose Garden became the first official test garden in 1912 for the American Rose Society founded in 1892, with the idea to test and to provide accurate information about roses for the public. This is when the half-circular section of the garden was added on the south side of the main square. In 1937, the American Rose Society asked the Park to add another semi-circle, which completes the garden of 2.5 acres as it stands today.

Florence Griswold Museum

With the twelve acres of scenic beauty, there's plenty of places to paint at the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme. Miss Florence’s garden and orchard were the subject for so many paintings by the Lyme Art Colony artists in the early 1900s. Florence Griswold was a keen gardener. From seed catalogs and references to gardening books among her correspondence, she was constantly in search of new and unusual plants. She helped others, including several of the Lyme artists, to establish their own gardens with “good, old-fashioned flowers” and filled her own home with small, informally arranged bouquets of fresh flowers.

Hollister House Garden

I recently discovered a beautiful, magical place to paint, the Hollister House Garden in Washington.
Designed with American interpretation of classic English gardens, it is formal in its structure but informal and rather wild in its style of planting. Begun in 1979 by George Schoellkopf, the garden is sited on the southeastern side of a rambling but serenely dignified eighteenth century house on 25 acres of mostly wooded countryside.

The garden unfolds in successive layers of space and color with delightful informal vistas from one section to the next. Eight-to-ten-foot walls and hedges with dramatic changes in level define the progression of garden spaces – “rooms” as the English like to say – and create a firm architectural framework for the romantic abundance of the plantings. A winding brook and a large pond at the bottom of the lawn add to the variety of the garden scene. They welcome plein air painters every Wednesday morning from 8 am-12 pm. It’s free. Just sign up on their website.

Jeanne’s Garden

I happen to know a few people who are avid gardeners, and my friend Jeanne is one of them. Not a day goes by that she's not out working hard in her gardens. There’s one large sunny one with meandering crushed stone paths that flowers most of the spring, summer and fall. She also has a peaceful shade garden replete with a wooden swing for those lazy days spent with a good book. If she's not in her garden, she's in her shed re-potting plants, making markers for her plants, or starting seedlings.
It's easy to find something beautiful to paint there.

My Quince Bush

My quince bush was especially beautiful this year. The blossoms are mostly pink, but here and there some red petals appear, adding an interesting twist. I love to garden and this year was a good one for flowering plants. From the white and yellow daffodils to the pale pink and fuchsia peonies, the fiery bee balm, peach and ruby day lilies and tall orange centered pink cone flowers, it's fun to see what colors are going to appear next. And, it's fun to watch the hummingbirds, butterflies and bees hover around the blossoms as they gather their food. Sometimes, your backyard is as good a place to paint as any.

Famous Paintings of Gardens

From Sargent to Sorolla, Jonas Wood to Winston Churchill, Berkshire to Bali — here's a video and some reading on how artists have found solace and inspiration in gardens the world over.

Christies' Are these the most beautiful gardens in art?