As the family and I travel we make planned stops along the way to gardens of special interest.  Sometimes the garden is the final destination and sometimes it is a pit stop.  Hollister House Garden is indeed a garden of special interest.  Situated in the beautiful and serine Litchfield County in northwestern Connecticut amongst the rolling hills and well stocked streams this garden reminds me of my time in England.  There is no other garden in the US that reminds me more of walking through the gardens of Hidcote Manor or Great Dixter.  This garden is a stunning American interpretation of the an English garden with its deeply layered plantings, framed hedges and the use of water as a focal point throughout.  The garden is the vision and labor of love of George Schoellkopf who started the garden in 1979.

Hollister’s gardens are a wonderful example of using a mixture of surfaces throughout the garden. When creating a pathway through a garden and between rooms there are many tricks you can do to play with the visitor to control their experience. Narrow pathways require you to turn the visitor to sneak through or duck their head to play with scale between areas.

When I go through all my photos from a garden, sometimes a theme appears that I don’t notice when I am touring the garden. With my images from Hollister House I noticed all I took a lot of images of the ground. It started with all the different stones uses for walkways, but there was also the shade pattern from the lattice and the water features. It just goes to show you don’t know the lasting impression a garden makes on you until long after you left.

The gardens open for the 2020 season on April 24th. Find more information at Hollister House Garden website here