One of the worst things about the covid virus -- at least in our part of the country -- is that all the gardens are closed. That means I can't visit Hillwood, the former estate of Post cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post, which is always fabulous in springtime.
While many visitors go to Hillwood to see the collections of Faberge eggs, Sevres porcelain, Russian Imperial and French decorative art, others go to see the 13 acres of formal gardens that will simply take your breath away, even in these times.
But now, you can visit Hillwood in a new book by Hillwood's executive director, Kate Markert, in A Garden for All Seasons: Marjorie Merriweather Post's Hillwood
Markert takes you through the history of the gardens, including Post's collaborations with prominent landscape architects Innocenti & Webel and Perry Wheeler, who helped her realize her vision for the gardens. As Markert says in the preface to the book, "She paid attention to every detail of the gardens' design and directed their creation with specificity and clarity. Each garden room at Hillwood has its own mood and function, resulting in different forms of beauty at different times of the year."
Anyone who's been to Hillwood knows the delights of the Lunar Lawn, which changes from season to season: thousands of tulips in spring, annuals in summer, chrysanthemums in fall, backed by scores of rhododendrons, camellias, and other flowering shrubs. Friendship Walk is lined with azaleas of every variety and hue -- a true feast for the eyes every April or May. The Rose Garden, of course, bursts with color in summer, along with the Cutting Garden, where blooms are harvested for floral arrangements inside the Hillwood mansion.
The Japanese-style Garden dates to 1957 and was one of the first of its kind in the United States; the enclosed French Parterre is visible from the mansion and it's boxwoods make this formal evergreen garden a place to stop year-round. There's also a woodland garden walk, the dog cemetery, a greenhouse filled with orchids, and much more.
Beautiful photographs by Eric Kvalsvik take you to every part of the garden, and if you never have a chance to visit Hillwood's gardens in all their glory, this is the book for you.
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