A Garden Crawl Through the Garden State

Nowadays New Jersey ranks second among states in blueberry production, third in cranberries and spinach and fourth in bell peppers, peaches and head lettuce, the official state Web site, nj.gov, boasts. Its status in flowers is unrecorded. But never mind the state’s reputation for being rather unlovely in places, gardens are what I set out to find. I visited five public gardens in five counties. Three are, as Michelin would say, “worth a detour.” Often I was alone with just the birds and other animals, which didn’t seem to mind the company. Once, when I stopped to take a picture, a chipmunk ran between my feet.

The New Jersey Botanical Garden, in Ringwood, in the northern part of the state, was the most pleasant surprise: an enchanting collection of specimens. It helps to stop at the visitors’ center, which offers a map and brochures about each specialty garden.

When I was there, in mid-May, the annual beds were bare, though the peonies in the neighboring perennial garden were about to bloom. Across the road, however, the site began to shine. Behind Skylands Manor, a 1920s Tudor revival mansion on the property that’s used as an inn, lies a series of tiered gardens: they start with hip-level beds of irises, violets and similar flowers that form an octagon around a stone fountain and gradually descend to a magnolia walk, azalea chamber, summer garden and tree peony garden. On the left, clusters of lilac trees — past their prime, but many still blooming — created an aroma that, like one of Proust’s madeleines, sparked a remembrance of springs past.

You can cross the road again to find gardens with a less manicured feel. On the trail along the pond you may hear a chorus of frogs while you take in the yellow water lilies. And don’t miss the moraine garden, which simulates a glacial area with mint-family plants, lily of the valley, ferns and the like, or the rhododendron and hosta gardens.

Equally worth a trip is the 127-acre Frelinghuysen Arboretum, in Morris Township, which describes itself as “part English-style park, part flower gardens, part working farm” built around a Colonial Revival home.

Near the visitors’ center, small patches illustrate “color gardens.” The blue garden wore full regalia on my visit, a mélange of blue and purple pansies, purply-blue aubrieta gracilis, true blue ladybells, brunnera and sweet Kate spiderwort. There’s also a yellow-red garden, but its time had not yet come.

Behind the mansion is a rose garden, with climbing roses and tea roses strutting their stuff, some a bright cerise. When you’ve finished smelling the roses, head for the gazebo, which offers a beautiful vista of a grassy area framed by baronial trees. And nearby is a charming knot garden, fashioned from trimmed boxwood hedges of differing shades of green in a four-point design.

The Frelinghuysen has two distinctive features: a garden for people with “special needs,” which was wheelchair-friendly but disappointingly small and spare, and a Braille nature trail, whose signs for the blind point out tree varieties, for example. Unfortunately, the promised guiding rope, with balls signaling where to stop for the signs, was missing.

A little farther south, in Bernardsville, is the Cross Estate Gardens, within Morristown National Historical Park. Drive right up to the mansion, a Queen Anne-style summer retreat dating to 1905 (now closed), and park in the circular driveway. The very appealing gardens, laid out in the 1930s, are entered through a nearby wooden gate.