Inspired By Nature

Heritage Museums & Gardens offers 100 spectacular acres of trees and shrubs, designed gardens, exquisite flowers and sweeping lawns. The gardens are a delight any time of year.

For an up-to-date list of the current blooms and sprouts, check out “What’s In Bloom?


Bee hotels are different than bee hives in that bee hives are home to community bees or bee colonies, but bee hotels attract solitary bees. They are called solitary bees because they build individual nest for their larva, but a some species will group their nests in aggregations. Read More

Bee Hotels

Cape Cod Hydrangea Society Display Garden. Begun in 2010, this is a partnership with the Cape Cod Hydrangea Society. . The garden is a showcase of about 155 species and cultivars of Hydrangeas. Read More

Hydrangeas

Dexter Rhododendron Garden. Dexter bought the property, then known as Shawme Farm, in 1921 and began spending summers with his wife at Shawme Farm. Worked with Paul Frost, a well-known landscape architect from Cambridge, to turn the wooded Shawme Farm into a country estate and to assist in his hybridizing working. Read More

Dexter Rhodie Garden

The Herb Garden. Designed by noted herb expert Susan Anthony as an 18th Century herb garden, common to a house of this period. The garden features plants that have medicinal, culinary, and household uses. Read More

Herb Garden

The McGraw Family Garden of the Senses. Visitors can easily navigate terrain while enjoying an experience designed to appeal to the senses of every visitor, regardless of age or ability. Its pathways were designed to eliminate barriers that, for some, present challenges to accessing all that Heritage has to offer. Read More

Garden of the Senses

McInnes Garden. This magical round garden near the flagpole, behind the Special Exhibition Gallery, was a gift by the McInnes Family in 2010 in memory of Blanche and Milton McInnes. Since 2016, Senior Gardener Iris Clearwater has given it a new theme every year, in hopes of creating a place for people to feel like they are stepping into another world with a sense of wonder, surprise, and discovery using interesting and exotic plants, often grown in our greenhouse Read More

McInnes Garden

Nature Trails. Unbeknownst to many visitors, the full-extent of our 65 acres of developed garden is open to the public. This includes several miles of nature trails that snake through the grounds. While you make your way through the gardens and galleries, keep an eye out for the meandering trails that diverge from the main loop. Read More

Trails

North American Hydrangea Test Garden. Heritage Museums & Gardens is home to a national hydrangea test garden where new hybrid varieties of hydrangeas are being planted, grown, and studied by professional growing experts from across the country. The garden affords researchers and growers easy access to test plants while offering home gardeners examples of which plants pair well together. Read More

Hydrangea Test Garden

Parking Bioswale. Designed with beauty, functionality, and sustainability in mind, the Parking Garden is a brilliant display of future-forward horticulture. With the help of renowned landscape architecture firm Oehme, van Sweden, the multi-season masterpiece not only functions as a network of sequential bioswales, but also looks stunning year-round. Read More

Parking Bioswale

The Flume Fountain & Sundial Garden. Guests travel the Promenade into the Garden and glimpse the Flume through the trees several times until finally arriving in the Daylily Garden. From the lawn the Flume is visible in the distance pouring into the pool below. The water garden is defined by native granite stone edges and invites visitors to explore the water plants and garden collection. Read More

Flume

Upcoming Gardening & Gardens Events

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Recent Garden News & Blogs

The Barbey Welcome Center Groundbreaking

February 8th, 2024|

The Barbey Family Welcome Center Groundbreaking, February 7, 2024 Groundbreaking Ceremony Marks the Start of Construction for the New Barbey Family Welcome Center at Heritage Museums & Gardens February 8, 2024 (Sandwich, MA) [...]

Welcome Center Capital Campaign

February 8th, 2024|

Welcome Center Capital Campaign Announcement, July 12, 2023 Heritage Museums & Gardens Announces Capital Campaign for New Welcome Center July 12, 2023 (Sandwich, MA) Heritage Museums & Gardens, a beloved cultural institution known [...]

Volunteer Spotlight!

October 5th, 2023|

Volunteer Spotlight: Featuring Elliot Friend By:  Iris Clearwater, Volunteer Coordinator & Senior Gardener Upon entering the J.K. Lilly Automobile Gallery, you cannot help but marvel at how perfectly clean and well maintained the cars [...]

  • Red White and Blue Hydrangeas

Where Have All the Flowers Gone? And Yet Another Chapter

July 6th, 2023|

Where Have All the Flowers Gone – and Yet Another Chapter in 2023 Mal’s Corner – CCHS Spring 2023 Newsletter As most of you know, I do follow the weather patterns fairly closely and [...]