Heritage Museums & Gardens: Gardens

In August, I went on a five-day trip to Cape Cod, MA where I visited many museums and cultural organizations, along with quick history stops and trails. My first stop was Heritage Museums & Gardens (HMG) in Sandwich, MA. While I spent half a day at this location, this fantastic venue was packed with so many outdoor activities and indoor history that I could have easily spent a leisurely day on the grounds. I certainly plan on going back! My coverage of HMG will be a six-part mini-series within the Cape Cod Adventure series beginning with an overview of the gardens.

What became HMG began with a project by Charles Owen Dexter, a lover of rhododendrons. Between 1921 and 1943, Dexter bred these large flower bushes into different varieties at home, which included 76-acre (0.31 km²) of grounds in Sandwich. He gifted friends and botanical gardens with his new breeds of flowers. When Dexter died in 1943, he left beautifully flowering gardens. In 1969, pharmaceutical industrialist Josiah Kirby Lilly III, whose great-grandfather Eli Lilly founded the company that still bears his name, turned the gardens into a museum, which they called Heritage Plantation of Sandwich. More recently, the organization joined the movement of changing the name of their museum same due to the association with slavery that has tainted the word “plantation”.

Since rhododendrons bloom in May and June, flowers were gone during my arrival; another reason to go back! Fortunately, I came at the height of hydrangea season, which runs from July through September These gardens included the North American Hydrangea Test Garden (NAHTG) and the Cape Cod Hydrangea Display Garden (CCHDG). Since 2010, the Cape Cod Hydrangea Society (CCHS) has bred these flowers, and they have collaborated with HMG since 2015. Today, the gardens showcase about 155 types of hydrangeas in an array of colors, including pink, white, and blue. Another fun fact I learned was that hydrangeas were originally from Japan. Since the weather and proximity of the ocean in Cape Cod mimics that climate, the hydrangeas do well there.

The McGraw Family Garden of the Senses was a fun concept combining seeing, hearing, touching, and smelling, although tasting is likely discouraged. This section included many smaller gardens, including two meadows and a stand of aspens. The path was designed specifically to be accessible to all guests! This section leads to the Hart Family Maze Garden, a shrub variety that I found more relaxing than the usual corn version. Another twisty pathway was the calming Labyrinth located near NAHTG.

The final surprise in the gardens was a plaque dedicated to Daniel Wing, the son of Reverend John Wing and Deborah Bachiler / Batchelder Wing, and the brother of John, Stephen, and Matthew. This family arrived in Boston in 1632 and then settled in Sandwich in 1637. He bought land belonging to fellow English colonist Andrew Wallett in 1641 and helped start the first Friend’s Meeting in what would become the United States, meaning that he was a Quaker. He was persecuted for his beliefs by settlers in Plymouth but still lived to the remarkable age of 81 or 82, dying in 1698. The Wing Family of America Incorporated set up this stone in honor of their ancestor in 1910.

The rating of this site will appear at the end of the series.