Trustees public gardens are a living documentary of Massachusetts horticulture and design traditions. Gardens are perennial sources of joy that offer masses of color, texture, spatial arrangement, and diversity that surprise and impress through the seasons. Beyond impressive aesthetics, gardens are imbued with stories—of the impacts of people on place, and of the balance inherent at the threshold of nature and the designed

Our ambition is to elevate and transform these horticultural spaces. Each of our gardens blends great scenic beauty, important ecological habitat, and carefully curated plan collections that range from native species to cultivars. All of our efforts—whether crafting dazzling seasonal displays, planting the next generation of trees, or performing daily resource care—are the result of deliberate decisions around a garden’s unique historical and cultural context. And while a garden’s needs vary dramatically from the high-pH soils of the Berkshires to the moderate climes of Martha’s Vineyard, our staff employs light-on-the-land practices across our horticultural portfolio, from the latest and most innovative methods to time-tested cultivation techniques.

We aim to honor and preserve the rich histories of our gardens, adapt them where necessary for contemporary use, and share them with new, diverse audiences. For some, they are the blooming backdrops to community events and festivities. For others, they are classrooms for absorbing skills from our expert horticulturists. Our living collections provide a window into the personalities whose vision shaped these landscapes, a complex laboratory of plant hardiness and diversity, and a testament to horticultural traditions over time. Our gardens are more than an impressive array of horticultural specimens: they are statements of personal beauty set within a Massachusetts ecosystem that is vibrant, vital, and constantly in flux.