Garden Collection

The gardens and landscape surrounding the Museum are not a botanical collection maintained for scientific purposes but, rather, an artistic composition that captures a significant period in the history of American horticulture. This landscape is a significant cultural artifact, and its components--plants, architecture, and decorative objects--are preserved and managed as a collection. The plant collection, in particular, is managed through our Plant Records System and documents woody plants and other taxa that are part of the designed landscape.

More information about our Garden collections:

Garden Images
Plant Database
What's in Bloom
Yearly Bloom Calendar
Major Plant Groupings
Summer Color in the Garden
Fall Color in the Garden

Learn how to donate a bench or tree to become a part of the garden collection.

Garden Collection

Garden Collection

Quarry Garden

Peony Garden

Oak Hill

Pinetum

Sycamore Hill

Magnolia Bend

Sundial Garden

Winterhazel Walk

Azalea Woods

March Bank

Quarry Garden
Begun in 1902, when H. F. du Pont was 22, March Bank is the oldest surviving garden area at Winterthur. Du Pont studied The Wild Garden (1904) and other writings by British horticulturists William Robinson and Gertrude Jekyll. Using these ideas, du Pont began naturalizing daffodils on the bank and by the 1940s had planted thousands of snowdrops, snowflakes, crocus, squills, and glory-of-the-snow.

Peony Garden
The herbaceous and tree peonies feature a dazzling array of white, pink, red, yellow, bronze, peach, and maroon flowers in May. Originally designed as an iris garden by landscape architect Marian Coffin in 1929, it was adapted to showcase the work of Dr. A. P. Saunders, a noted peony hybridizer.

Oak Hill
Stroll along the grass paths that afford spectacular views of the surrounding countryside and pond below. Drifts of colorful native and exotic azaleas bloom from April into summer. Lavender colchicum carpet the hill in autumn, echoed by the purple beautyberries nearby.

Pinetum
This rich collection of conifers, or cone-bearing trees, includes pines, firs, spruces, cedars, and their relatives. H. F. du Pont’s father, Henry Algernon du Pont, began the Pinetum in 1914. A notable collection of flowering quince forms a floral corridor beneath the evergreens.

Garden Collection

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