This article of Veranda about American secret gardens opens a passage to a hidden, enchanted, magical world. An oasis of magnificence and astonishment, able to attract you in its poetry out of time, hearing the wise silence of nature flowing on. An enchantment between fascination and mystery, that one of a secret garden. It happens in those gardens of rare beauty, aesthetic and spiritual – often private properties – that open the doors to public only once or twice a year, in order to preserve their secrets and mysteries.
In the US there are numerous botanical treasures, green pearls unknown also to local citizens, a place that will make you feel like the characters of the novel “The secret garden” hanging between fairy tale and reality.
In Glastonbury, Connecticut, an entrance made of stone, brings you to Murray Gardens, a wonderful park in which you can lose yourself through curvy trails studded by sculptures, little falls surrounded by Japanese maples and huge dahlia flower fields with million warm and bright colors.
In Taghkanic, in the district of New York, it will seems you to live in the story of “Alice in Wonderland” and the name of this garden can confirm you. At the end of a country road, you will find Alice Platt, a place that seems to have just come out from a fairy tale, full of bridges and tracks that enclose a wild and magnificent nature, without competitiveness with it.
Once again in Connecticut, in West Cornwall if you are lucky you can enter the Garden of Jane Garmey. Secular maples protect this corner of paradise, preventing the view from outside. However, if you come in the right days when it’s open to public, you will find yourself in the enchanted world of a village in 1827.
Despite it is a big place, only a few people in Chicago know this secret garden, popular only to horticulture men and to their clients. The Gardens at Ball with his 10 hectares of lush nature, is open to public once a year, allowing with exclusive rights to enjoy the beauties inside.
And finally, in Olympia, Washington, you can visit The Koi Garden, which the owner defines as a “piece of resistance”. Protagonist of this garden is the small Japanese lake full of carps of all colors and sizes. Also well-kept plants and the big cage bird are extremely scenographic and very special to see.
Marco Sandrini, Chief Landscape Designer at Sandrini Green Architecture