Tower Hill Botanic Garden - August 2013

10 years ago

Since I've bought a membership to Tower Hill, and I'm "forcing" myself to go on a regular basis, I am becoming more aware of how often the garden beds change. For instance, the garden by the gazebo, on the walkway from the parking lot to the visitor center, has been redone with cacti and succulents.

In some of the photos you can see the "mulch". In some areas it seems to be crushed glass. In other areas, just pebbles. And then it looked like there were larger lava stones for accents. It was very pretty.

Comments (5)

pixie_lou
Original Author
10 years ago
The area right in front of the visitors center was using vegetables as ornamentals. I did notice many tomato - particularly black tomatoes - as well as peppers and lettuces interspersed throughout the gardens. As many of us talk about how many things did not grown because of the odd weather this year - makes me wonder at Tower Hill - was this all intentional? Or did their annual flowers all keel over and they are making due with what they have!

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The "vertical" planter they have (2nd photo) which is on the exterior wall of the visitor center - last year iirc it was done all with potted bromelaids. The bromelaids were all down by the secret garden. Strategically attached to lamp posts and arbor supports.
pixie_lou
Original Author
10 years ago
Lastly - hydrangea alley. I had high hopes. Since I've seen so many wonderful hydrangea photos on the Show Us Your Landscape threads that create But, it was a tad dissapointing. It seems that it is mostly Oak Leaf Hydrangeas. I'm not sure if the Oak Leafs are later blooming. Or if they are just having a bad year.

And lastly - a big snowball type hydrangea from a different garden.
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bill_ri_z6b
10 years ago
Pixie Lou, thanks for posting! My Oakleaf is loaded with blooms as it is every year, so it must be something there in Worcester. Of course I am probably at least 1/2 zone warmer here, maybe even a full zone, so that might explain it. Do you know if the cacti were the hardy opuntias? I see many potted succulents that are not hardy here in New England for certain, but the prickly pears may well be the hardy ones. I have several in my front garden.

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bill_ri_z6b
10 years ago
Pixie Lou, thanks for posting! My Oakleaf is loaded with blooms as it is every year, so it must be something there in Worcester. Of course I am probably at least 1/2 zone warmer here, maybe even a full zone, so that might explain it. Do you know if the cacti were the hardy opuntias? I see many potted succulents that are not hardy here in New England for certain, but the prickly pears may well be the hardy ones. I have several in my front garden.

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pixie_lou
Original Author
10 years ago
Bill - sorry, but I know absoloutely nothing about cacti. So even if I paid attention to the names, I would have no idea if they were hardy.

Tower Hill does a lot of containers in their gardens. They now have the limonaia in addition to the orangerie, so it's like having 2 huge greenhouses to overwinter non hardy plants. As I mentioned, the potted bromelaids that were near the entrance last year are now down by the secret garden. And I'm guessing they were the same bromelaids that made a bromelaid tree back in December.