Views From The Beacon Hill Garden Club Tour

Christening in a lovely stretch of cobblestone-clad streets on the edge of the Boston Public Garden, Beacon Hill rises sharply 100 feet above sea level. As a result, the gardens behind the iconic brick townhouses one finds in this highly-valued part of the city are a form of terracing on pitched terrain; lush green shrubs and trellised vines give each ribbon garden a luxurious, lived-in feel.

Common walls separating spaces behind each townhouse (which typically date to the early 1820’s) are often shared with a neighbor, and sometimes the garden wall is the 5-story building next door. Walls used to obscure laundry lines and horse stalls, and now they separate beautiful little coves into charming, secluded gardens.

Allium at the nearby Boston Public Garden (established in 1837 adjacent to the Boston Common) is a treat for visitors of Beacon Hill seeking shady respite from the neighborhood’s welcoming shops, restaurants, and museums.

The Secret Garden–vibes abound at various gardens around Beacon Hill, which welcomes over 2,500 visitors to the neighborhood for the annual garden club tour. “From its first garden tour since the club was founded in 1928,” the organization writes, “club members have opened their gardens every year on the third Thursday in May, even through the Depression and World War II.” The heritage and bespoke architecture of this unique neighborhood once caught the eye of Garden Collage Founder Daisy Helman, who felt that the magic of rarified spaces came to life when they were opened to welcome visitors.

In 1634 the Boston Common was established as America’s first public park– a green area for citizens of a then-urbanizing city to make their leisurely way across town. Just over two centuries later, the Public Garden was established as the first public botanical garden in America. At once more decorative and floral than the adjacent common (which is more of a park), the garden now houses Nancy Schon’s Make Way For The Ducklings, a set of sculptures inspired by Robert McCluskey’s book about Mr. and Mrs. Mallard and their adventures while finding a safe place to hatch and raise their offspring.

Beacon Hill’s gates–the back-door entryways to the gardens behind each house– were originally built to permit deliveries of coal, ice, and/or firewood into utility yards. Today, they are used for unloaded groceries or stowing bicycles. Given the shaded nature of most ribbon gardens (compact and narrow spaces that “snake” around a property), Beacon Hill gardens tend to be defined by impatiens, begonias, hydrangeas, dahlias, and other partial-sun cultivars. Ground cover is also a popular choice for planted beds.

Swan boats harbored in the lake at the nearby Boston Public Garden are open from 10 AM to 4 PM, weather permitting.

Given the compact configuration of many of the homes on Beacon Hill, beautiful alley ways are carved out on the front and side of homes now well-endowed with creeping ivy– a staple of old New England heritage. In May, just when the foliage is reaching its lush peak, spring flowers peak through the top soil and flowering shrubs take on idle splendor. No two homes are like, and neither are the gardens.