5774 Main Street
Stratford, CT 06614
Phone: 203-381-2046
This 32-acre former homestead of the Boothe Family (1663-1949) offers with picnic facilities, rose garden, and wedding garden. Buildings on National Historic Landmark site with displays of early farm equipment, carriages and baskets; trolley history, toll booth exhibit.
Hours: Park grounds are open year-round, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Museums and displays are open June 1 through October 1, Tuesday-Friday, 11 a.m.-1 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, 1-4 p.m.
Admission: Free
144 Oenoke Ridge
New Canaan, CT 06840
Phone: 203-966-9577
Dedicated to helping people of all ages better understand, appreciate and care for the world of nature
Take a fascinating look into the science and nature in the area. Set on 40 acres, the nature center features gardens and a solar-heated greenhouse, as well as many trails, exhibits, an arboretum, live animals, and a maple sugar shed.
Hours: Grounds open dawn to dusk daily; buildings and officer open Monday-Saturday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Donation requested.
1520 Bronson Road
Fairfield, CT 06824 - 2828
Phone: 203-259-1598
Built in the 18th century, this traditional New England farmhouse is host to exhibits detailing the daily lives of colonial Americans. The property also has a wildflower garden and a kitchen garden.
Open: Sundays, June to September, 1 to 4 p.m. and by appointment. Fee charged.
243 East Putnam Avenue
Greenwich, CT 06830
Phone: 203-869-9697
Centuries of history
Known as Knapp’s Tavern during the American Revolution, this Colonial house dates to the early 1700s. It is furnished with period antiques and artifacts and includes a Colonial herb garden and carriage shed. Located on the Boston Post Road, it has been a tourist destination for almost 100 years.
Hours: Tours by appointment only during January, February and March. In season, open Sundays, 1-4 p.m. and by appointment. Call for group tour information. Fee charged.
Corner of Prospect Avenue and Asylum Avenue
Hartford, CT
Phone: 860-231-9443
The park’s world famous rose garden is the oldest municipally operated rose garden in the country. The two-and-a half-acre rose garden has 15,000 plants in about 800 varieties of roses. The park is also home to a rock garden and specialized gardens of annuals, herbs, and perennials.
Hours: Year-round, daily, dawn to dusk.
77 Forest Street
Hartford, CT 06105
Phone: 860-522-9258
Open: Tours: Tuesday-Saturday, 9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.; Sunday, noon-4:30 p.m.; open on Mondays, Memorial Day to Columbus Day and December. Closed major holidays.
Her words changed the world with "Uncle Tom's Cabin," the groundbreaking anti-slavery novel (1852). Tour the Victorian Gothic home (1871), the Katharine Seymour Day House (1884), and the Victorian grounds and gardens. Stowe Visitor Center showcases exhibitions, museum shop.
Admission: Adults, $8; seniors,$7; children age 4-12, $4.
55 South Main Street
Suffield, CT 06078
This mansion is a showplace for the history of the 18th century including a formal Colonial garden. Exhibits include French wallpaper and neo-classical architecture.
Hours: Open for afternoon tours on designated days from May 15 to October 15, or by prior appointment. Call for current schedule. Fee charged.
West Main Street
Meriden, CT 06450
Phone: 203-630-4259
Hubbard Park is located around East Peak and West Peak of the area called the Hanging Hills. It comprises approximately 1,800 acres of carefully kept woodland, lake and stream, flower gardens, and picnic spots.
Hours: April-October, daily, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Fee: Call for details.
Hayden Hill Road, off Route 154
Haddam, CT 06438
Phone: 860-345-2400
This three-story, 1794 home has been restored to reflect the lifestyle and furnishings of the period. A garden on the property features herbs, vegetables, and flowers.
The house’s gardens were redesigned in the 1980s in the Colonial Revival style with granite-edged beds and gravel paths, using plants commonly grown in household gardens in the lower Connecticut River Valley in about 1830. Most of the garden is now devoted to herbs used for cooking, medicine, dyeing, fragrance and other household uses, with a small bed featuring vegetables common in gardens in the early 1800s and a few old-fashioned annuals. Over 50 varieties of herbs are planted in the garden, including many of the ones Thankful Arnold would have used.
Hours: Open year-round; Wednesday, 9 a.m.-3 p.m.; Thursday, 2 -8 p.m.; Friday, noon-3 p.m.; also from Memorial Day to Columbus Day, Sundays, 1- 4 p.m.
Admission: Adults, $4; seniors, $3; children, $2.
211 Main Street
Wethersfield, CT 06109
Phone: 860-529-0612
The Webb-Deane-Stevens (WDS) Museum provides the quintessential New England experience. During the museum’s ours, visitors are immersed in life of the mid-18th and early-19th centuries with stories of the charm, hardship, and political intrigue of that era. Three meticulously restored homes are included in the one-hour tour. The 1752 Joseph Webb House served as George Washington’s headquarters in May 1781; the Silas Deane House, circa 1770, was built for America’s Revolutionary War diplomat to France; the Isaac Stevens House, 1789, depicts the life of a middle class family in the 1820s and 30s using many original family possessions.
The lovely Colonial Revival Garden was designed by one of America’s first female landscape architects.
Hours: May 1-October 31, daily, except Tuesdays, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. and Sundays, 1-4 p.m. April and November weekends only. Saturday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. and Sunday, 1-4 p.m.
Admission for tour: Adults, $10; seniors over age 60, $9; for students and children age 5-18, $5; families, $25
1329 West Middle Turnpike
Manchester, CT 06040
Phone: 860-528-0856
Wickham Park extends into both Manchester and East Hartford, Connecticut. The park contains 250 acres of gardens, open fields, woodlands, ponds, picnic areas, sports facilities, and other attractions. The park contains 250 acres of gardens, open fields, woodlands, ponds, picnic areas, sports facilities, and other attractions.
Hours: First weekend in April through the last weekend in October; 9:30 a.m.-sunset except in inclement weather.
Admission: Parking fee for cars is $4 weekdays and $5 weekends; higher fees for buses.
9 Main Street
Bethlehem, CT 06751
Phone: 203-266-7596
The Bellamy-Ferriday House & Garden, in the center of Bethlehem, is a property of Connecticut Landmarks. Once the home of Bethlehem's first minister, the house was built in 1754, and is filled with American and European antiques. In addition to the 1754 home, the property also features a formal parterre garden, with a collection of roses, peonies, and lilacs. To reserve tours for 10 people or more, please call 203-266-7596.
Hours: May through October, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Admission: Adults, $7; students, teachers and seniors, $6; children age 6-18, $4.
165 Whisconier Road / Routes 25 and 133
Brookfield, CT 06840
Phone: 203-775-4628
An extended learning and research center
Brookfield’s original town hall, built in 1875, is now home to a Colonial garden, as well as changing historical exhibits and a gift shop. Guided tours are available.
Hours: every Saturday and the first Sunday of each month between May and December; second and fourth Saturdays, January through March. Noon to 4 p.m. Also open by appointment.
Hollow Road / P.O. Box 245
Woodbury, CT 06798
Phone: 203-263-2855
Farmhouse built in 1740 is set in the picturesque Litchfield Hills in historic Woodbury’s village center. It offers a glimpse of Revolutionary War-era Connecticut. Birthplace of the Episcopal Church in the New World and graced by the only existing American garden planned by Gertrude Jekyll.
Hours: May-October, Wednesday-Sunday, 1-4 p.m.; November, weekends only, 1–4 p.m. Fee charged.
325 Cornwall Bridge Road / Route 4
Sharon, CT 06069
Phone: 860-364-0520
Nature trails meander through gardens, woods and around ponds. Walking the trails affords the opportunity to experience a diversity of wildlife habitats, home to a wide variety of plants, birds, and animals like bobcats, beavers, river otters and deer. The chestnut-sided warbler, ovenbird, and wood thrush, among other neotropical migratory birds, breed in our woods in the summer while many other migratory birds use the property as a lay-over point during their long migrations.
The Visitor Center houses the Nature Store, our Natural History Museum and Exhibit Room, live animals and displays, a Children's Adventure Center, and Research Library. Exhibits include a children’s discovery room, live animals and natural history. A gift shop and book store can also be found in the museum.
Hours: The Visitors Center and Nature Store are open year round, Tuesday-Saturday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sunday, 1 to 5 p.m. The building is closed on all major holidays.
Admission: Trails and most programs are $3 for adults; $1.50 for seniors; $1.50 for children
350 Main Street
Old Saybrook, CT 06475
Phone: 860-388-2622
A Georgian-style Colonial built in 1767, featuring an herb garden and intricate decor. Of particular interest are the eight corner fireplaces. Notice the nine-window facade with 12 over 12 panes, the cornices, cornerboards and graduated clapboards.
Hours: June 12- September 13, Friday - Sunday, 12:30 - 4 p.m. Donation is requested.
275 Great Neck Road / State Route 213
Waterford, CT 06385
Phone: 860-443-5725
This beachfront park on Long Island Sound, site of a former mansion is home to an unusual historic and beautiful experience. Enjoy a garden of heliotropes, bred from the plants grown on the site over a century ago.
Hours: 8 a.m.-sunset. Mansion is open for tours weekends and holidays from Memorial Day Weekend to Labor Day. The first tour starts at 10 a.m. and the last at 2:15 p.m. Fees for parking.
Rockwell Street
Norwich, CT 06360
Phone: 860-823-3791
Situated on two acres of gently sloping parkland, the garden features 2,500 rose bushes in 120 varieties. The roses are at their full height during June but continue to blossom throughout the summer.
19 West Ave.
Essex, CT
Phone: 860-767-0681
Colonial home, built in 1734, features antique American furniture and an herb garden. The house documents the life of early Essex through a single family over 200 years.
Hours: June-Labor Day, Saturday-Sunday, 1-4 p.m. Fee charged.
96 Lyme Street
Old Lyme, CT 06371
Phone: 860-434-5542
This 11-acre riverfront campus calls itself the Home of American Impressionism, for its service in the 1910s as a summer boarding house to artists of the Lyme Art Colony. The Krieble Gallery hosts changing exhibitions of American art. The permanent collection includes works by Church, Cole, Twachtman, Hassam, and others. The Griswold House contains a remarkable collection of painted panels and doors left in their original places by the artists who stayed at the Florence Griswold House. Museum offers many seasonal events and activities for children.
Visitors today understand immediately the site's appeal to the artists who stayed with Florence Griswold. Her house, gardens and river view were favored subjects of her boarders. Walking the grounds, one is delighted by the same trees and gentle bend in the river. Visitors stand at the site of Childe Hassam's favorite spot, stroll Miss Florence's lovingly restored old-fashioned garden.
Hours: Krieble Gallery and Griswold House open Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sunday, 1-5 p.m. Chadwick Studio and Rafal Landscape Center open mid-May through October.
Admission: Adults, $9; seniors, $8; students, $7; children age 12 and younger admitted for free.
10 Deerfield Lane
Ansonia, CT 06401
Phone: 203-736-1053
Once a small family-owned dairy farm, the park is laced with two and one-half miles of nature trails. The land encompasses 104 acres of wooded hills and grassy fields bisected by streams, a two acre pond, wet meadows, and an upland swamp. The site is a microcosm of a typical Connecticut landscape, providing sanctuary to many species of New England flora and fauna. A butterfly/hummingbird garden and an award-winning woodland wildflower and fern garden grace the visitor center. Also, soccer, baseball, and softball fields; several acres reserved for community gardening; and a large play scape for younger children.
Hours: Daily sunup to sundown; interpretive center open 9 a.m. t o 5 p.m. daily except on major holidays.
Admission: Free.
75 Cliff Street at Whitney Avenue
New Haven, CT 06511
Beautiful history
Once an experimental mulberry orchard, this stately public park was the home of Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin. Bought in 1906 by the Brewster family, the stately mansion stood near the great lawn of an estate designed to replicate an English landscape garden. Now a city park hosting many public cultural events.
Hours: Open from sunrise to sunset every day of the year. The conservatory is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. every day except major holidays.
500 Hawthorne Avenue (near Osbornedale State Park)
Derby, CT 06418
Phone: 203-734-2513
Open: Late April-mid-December, Thursday-Friday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; Sunday, noon-4 p.m. Grounds: Monday-Saturday, 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m.; Sunday, noon-4 p.m.
Former estate of Frances Osborne Kellogg. Elegant Colonial Revival home (1850), original antiques and fine arts. Formal rose and flower garden, English rock garden. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Admission: Donation requested.
Pardee Rose Gardens
180 Park Road
New Haven, CT 06517
Phone: 203-946-8025
These gardens include more than 15 different types of roses (peaking in June and July), annuals, perennials, and herbs. Picnic areas are available in this tranquil formal rose garden open free to the public. The garden is also available for weddings and special events.
Hours: Open mid-May to early September.
