Stop 7: Idea Garden

Adjacent to the greenhouse is the Idea Garden.

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This area was once an orchard, with fruit trees and grapes, and a cutting garden. But what is a cutting garden? Its primary purpose is to provide a variety of flowers and foliage that are meant to be cut for flower arrangements to decorate the rooms in the mansion. This allows gardeners to have their cake and eat it too…. in this case both to maintain a beautiful and well-designed garden with un-touched flowers, and keep a separate garden with flowers expressly designed for cutting.

Today, this area is an Idea Garden.

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These gardens present an inspirational and invigorating marriage of formal and naturalistic landscape elements, reflecting the family's love of both nature and ornamental horticulture.

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Step through the hedge of Dawn Redwood trees and walk to the Vegetable Garden.