Brookside Gardens Map Tour

South Terrace

From spring to fall, 30 different types of flowering bulbs bloom in succession under the ginkgoes in the South Terrace, bringing color to the garden month after month. Be sure to find the pre-historic beds on the Visitors Center Terrace to see ancient horsetail and ginkgoes, plants that have been around since the dinosaurs roamed. On summer evenings, the South Terrace is often rented for weddings and other social events.

Gude Garden

The Gude Garden, created in 1972 as a memorial to local nurseryman Adolf Gude Sr., is the largest and most structurally diverse garden area at Brookside Gardens. Many of the plants in the garden were donated by the Gude family themselves, who’ve been in the horticultural business since their first horse-drawn flower cart in 1889. As you walk toward southwest corner of the garden you’ll notice rolling green hills surrounding a large pond, which is home to basking turtles, shimmering goldfish, and statuesque blue herons. The pond is bookended by the Reflection Terrace to the east and the meditative walking Labyrinth to the west. The Gude Garden offers beauty in every season. In Winter, snow and ice frost the Teahouse and pond, transmuting the flora into crystalline formations. In Spring, the weeping cherry trees decorate the garden with pink blossoms. In Summer, flowering aquatic plants burst from the surface of the pond, adding to the verdancy of the sloped hills and leafy island. In Fall, the garden is decorated with russet foliage of Japanese maples. Come to the Gude Garden for a moment of reflection and to spot some of our most unique plants and animals.  

Labyrinth

Located on a knoll in the Gude Garden, the Labyrinth is a singular curving path that leads to a center point. Dating back thousands of years, labyrinths were used for meditation, dance or the site of rituals and ceremony.  Today, visitors walk the labyrinth in mindful meditation, while children often run along the path in a noisy race to the middle.

Japanese Tea House

The delicate wooden Japanese Tea House, silvered with age, perches atop an island in the water. Around the Tea House, you’ll find exotic conifers, choice perennials, flowering cherries, and delicate Japanese maple trees. In spring and fall, the Tea House is the site of wellness classes, including Yoga and Tai Chi, where the calmness of the site enhances the meditative quality of the disciplined movements.

Reflection Terrace

The Reflection Terrace provides a wide-angle view of the six-acre Gude Garden, which is designed in the “pond and island” style of Japanese Gardens. The strong horizontal and vertical planes of local Carderock stone evoke a symbolic landscape that transitions from dense conifers on the mountaintops to grassy meadows to waterside beach. At the water’s edge, low stones mimic a fishing pier. Plantings of flowering cherries and Japanese maples provide spring and fall color. Large standing stones in Reflection Terrace are engraved with the names of the victims lost in the 2002 sniper shootings in the DC metro area.

Viburnum Garden

As the weather warms and spring flowers bloom, make your way to the Viburnum Garden. This garden is comprised of a collection of uniquely beautiful viburnums, flowering and fruiting shrubs, as well as native perennials. Look for the ‘Compact Koreanspice’ viburnum with its fluffy snowball-like clusters of pale flowers. Lean in to smell the sweet fragrance of the tiny white blossoms. If you visit in early spring, you’ll find the stunning ‘Charles Lamont’ viburnum in bloom. This shrub’s dark, bare branches are adorned with clusters of pink flowers, echoing the lovely cherry blossom trees blooming throughout the gardens. In the Summer months, see if you can spot the remarkable coloration of the ‘Aphrodite’ sweetshrub with its wine-red flowers set against glossy deep-green leaves. Make sure to find the highbush blueberry bushes amongst the viburnums. In Spring, these shrubs drip with small bell-shaped flowers that, with the help of visiting pollinators, turn into sweet blueberries in the summer. Planted with the shrubs you’ll also find colorful perennials, like the blue trumpet-shaped blooms of gentian, and native conifers, like feathery Atlantic white cedar.  

Fragrance Garden

A visit to the Fragrance Garden is a multi-sensory experience. Each plant has been selected not only for its beauty, but also its olfactory allure. In the center of the garden a series of hexagonal beds, joined like honeycomb, are filled with seasonally fragrant flowers: delicate tulips (Tulipa spp.) and fritillaria (Fritillaria spp.) in Spring, ambrosial stock (M. incana) and angel’s trumpet (Brugmansia spp.) in Summer; and herbaceous chrysanthemums (Chrysanthemum spp.) in Autumn. Be sure to walk the boundaries of the garden to find fragrant perennial gems like gardenia (Gardenia spp.), pineapple mint (M. suaveolens), and ponderosa lemon (Citrus x pyriformis). Arbors draped in wisteria (Wisteria spp.) line the northern edge, shading wooden benches with graceful clusters of purple flowers in the warmer months and golden leaves when it’s cool. Take a rest under the copper-roofed gazebo in the heart of the garden and enjoy the sweetly scented air. 

Wedding Gazebo

Tucked into the heart of the garden is the lovely and romantic Wedding Gazebo. Surrounded by trees and greenery, this area of the garden feels like a private retreat. The light green copper roof is complimented by all seasonal coloration; the pastel spring, verdant summer, and bronze autumn. In Winter, the Gazebo is transformed into a glowing spectacle for our annual celebration, Garden of Lights. Whether you’re considering the Gardens for your celebration, or if you’re simply one of our wonderful visitors, take a moment to enjoy the undisturbed serenity of the Wedding Gazebo. 

Maple Terrace

The Maple Terrace is one of the best gardens to return to season after season. As the weather changes, this interplanted formal garden transforms, each evolution as beautiful as the last. In early Spring yellow winter aconite, white snowdrops, and purple irises arrive to brighten the mood. Summer brings the periwinkle blooms of blue leadwort, whose leaves turn crimson as the weather cools. The garden is most brilliant in Autumn when the scarlet leafage of the ‘Suminagashi’ Japanese maples sets the terrace aflame with color. Sit on the benches surrounding the garden to enjoy the trickling blue fountain and the stunning fall foliage. 

Yew Garden

Neatly trimmed hedges frame the idyllic Yew Garden. As you enter under an arch of fragrant climbing hyacinth vine, you’ll see a tidy lawn bordered by a mix of colorful seasonal plantings, including annuals like open-faced, vibrant vinca and exquisite tropicals like tall, vivid canna lilies. Included in the bordering beds are the unique flowering crabapple trees, trained to have parallel branches in the espalier style. As you stroll along the central path, notice how striking the bright blooms are against the dark backdrop of the evergreen yew. 

Perennial Garden

The Perennial Garden, just west of the Conservatories, may be at its most spectacular in the height of summer. In the August heat, lush flora reaches past the borders of the beds almost overflowing the walls that surround the formal garden. Feathery reed grasses, bright hollyhocks, and alliums with heads like fireworks stand tall and wave in the warm breeze. Starry-shaped asters in pinks, blues and yellows along with cones of Buddleia flowers provide nectar to the many visiting bumblebees and butterflies. The center of the garden is graced by a shimmering pool decorated with bountiful planted containers. If you need inspiration for your own garden, this is the place. The plants in the Perennial Garden do well in Maryland’s hot summers and cold winters and come back year after year. 

Rose Garden

The Rose Garden at summertime provides a radiant profusion of color. As you walk around the formal geometric beds, you’ll see over 100 varieties of roses of all types. Look for stunning cultivars like the bright salmon ‘Marmalade Skies’, the sumptuous ‘Midnight Blue’, and the sunset hued ‘Love and Peace’. Be sure to stop and smell some of the hybrid-tea roses, many of which are bred for their enchanting fragrance. Keep your eyes peeled for the green nameplates that indicate the American Rose Society’s All-America Rose Selections. In the center of the garden you’ll find benches shaded by lofty crepe myrtles, characterized by their rusty trunks and crowns of purple flowers. Along the western border you can walk under a pergola adorned with a canopy of sweetly scented climbing wisteria. Sit by the reflecting pool for a moment of pure tranquility. 

Trial Garden

The Trial Garden is located along a hillside overlooking the east side of the Conservatories. This space allows our gardeners to explore and experiment with all the horticultural possibilities. Throughout the years the Trail Garden has featured a myriad of innovative displays including a cocktail-themed garden of aromatic herbs, beds of delicious vegetables, and thousands of spring flowering bulbs. This garden offers plenty of inspiration for home gardeners including a low-maintenance bed, beds featuring All-American Selection annuals, and summer displays of new and unusual plant varieties. No matter the season, you’ll find compelling blends of color, texture, and taxonomy in the Trial Garden and we guarantee you’ll want to take some ideas home with you.

Rain Garden

As you enter the gardens near the conservatories, the dense, flourishing Rain Garden welcomes you to Brookside. Planted at the base of a grassy slope, this garden was designed to catch rainwater runoff from the lawn above. The Rain Garden includes trees, shrubs and perennials that specifically help hold and filter water, preventing flooding and allowing the water to soak into the soil with fewer contaminants. This area is not only functional, but lovely. Pink-flowered mountain laurel, bright-leaved huckleberry, and native deciduous azalea provide structure and color. A multitude of water-friendly irises in all shades bloom in the summertime. Throughout the year, tulips, elephant ears, mums and other plants are added to the beds to mark the changing seasons. Foliate ferns and evergreens assure the garden is verdant even through the colder months. If you visit in January, peek under the gingko tree to see delicate white snowdrops poking through the snow and leaf litter. Stop by the Rain Garden to see how you could add ecologically conscious beauty and utility to a low rainy spot in your own garden. 

Butterfly Garden

Monarchs, Tiger Swallowtails, Orange Sulfurs, Buckeyes, and Pearl Crescents; these are just some of the butterflies that visit Brookside’s outdoor Butterfly Garden. The beds that line the walk west of the conservatories have been planted with butterfly host and nectar plants specifically to attract the fluttering pollinators. Look closely at the milkweed with its spikey half-moon seed pods. Can you see any black-white-and-yellow-striped monarch caterpillars munching on the leaves? Study the fleecy mauve flowers at the tops of the Joe Pye weed. Can you spot any black swallowtails nectaring? Nestled in the foliage you may find other interesting insects like sharp-eyed praying mantids, iridescent dogbane beetles, and chartreuse shield bugs. In the Summers, follow the path down to the Wings of Fancy exhibit to see exquisite butterflies from around the world in the South Conservatory.  

Conservatory North House

There are few things more restorative than walking into the heated, verdant North Conservatory on a chilly winter’s day. Year-round this greenhouse is filled with tropical plants from around the globe. Banana trees and palms almost touch the ceiling with their broad leaves, while ferns and vines creep along the loamy beds. Search by the waterfall for the powderpuff tree (C. haematocephala) with its shockingly pink flocculent flowers. Rub the leaves of the false cardamom ginger (A. nutuens) and inhale the spicy fragrance from Southeast Asia. Can you find the South American cacao tree (T. cacao) with its large, bright orange pods? Walk along the western side of the house to see beautiful displays of flowering plants that change with the seasons.  

Conservatory South House

For a magical experience any time of year, come to the South Conservatory at Brookside Gardens. In Summer, the greenhouse is transformed into Wings of Fancy, our extraordinary live butterfly exhibit featuring hundreds of fluttering butterflies from around the world. In Fall, the stunning Chrysanthemum Show is in full bloom. With Winter comes our Garden Railway, a miniature train display showcasing historical Maryland sites, including a model of our very own Conservatories. Our Spring show makes dreary days bright with fragrant, colorful flowers and flourishing greenery. Stop by to see what’s on display today!

Woodland Walk

A stroll along the Woodland Walk takes you from the manicured gardens of Brookside into an acre of serene wetland forest. Beneath a canopy of bald cypress and tulip poplar, fragrant and lemony spicebush, umbrella-leafed mayapple and thick skunk cabbage fill out the understory. As you walk along the wooden boardwalk notice the native plant garden with over 120 species and cultivars of Maryland natives. Look for eastern columbine with its architectural scarlet flowers, bright orange and spotted turk’s-cap lilies, and delicate white mountain mint. Take a rest on the octagonal observation deck to listen and watch for birds and other local wildlife. If you make your way along the length of the boardwalk, you’ll find the bridge to Brookside Nature Center. As you cross the bridge, check the brook for basking turtles, chirping frogs, and long-legged water-striders. Head up to the Nature Center to learn more about the flora and fauna you may have seen in the Woodland Walk garden. 

40th Anniversary Grove

The 40th Anniversary Grove is formed by 40 towering bald cypress trees. Planted like pillars along the mulched path they form a living cathedral. Bald cypress are deciduous conifers and, as the name suggests, loose their needles in winter, letting sunlight shine through their branches to illuminate the ground below. The light and warmth bring forth spring-blooming grape hyacinth, blue Spanish squill, delicate white foamflower, and yellow daffodils that turn the ground into a tapestry of color. As the weather warms and the cypress needles grow, the Grove transforms into a shady respite from the summer heat. Lush ferns, returning perennials, and blooming bulbs cover the forest floor. Make your way to the end of the path where you’ll find a copse of native pawpaw trees, whose fall-ripening fruit tastes like banana custard. In Spring and Summer, this secluded garden is the ideal place to rest. Take in the smell of water on warm earth, growing leaves and fragrant flowers. Listen for calling goldfinches and busy woodpeckers. Enjoy the dappled sunlight filtering through the trees. There are few places more peaceful at Brookside than the 40th Anniversary Grove.  

Azalea Garden

Right as the frenzy of cherry blossom season dies down in late-April, magnificently colored azaleas burst into bloom, making the pastels of early spring seem spiritless in comparison. As you stroll through the Azalea Garden, you’ll see over 300 azalea varieties in riotous colors like magenta, coral, heliotrope, garnet, and ivory. Each shrub is smothered in hundreds of vivid blossoms, making a walk through this garden an almost psychedelic experience. If you take the mulched paths deeper into the garden, you’ll be enveloped by sprawling azaleas and other tall woody shrubs such as winter-blooming witch-hazels, evergreen hollies, and flowering Japanese andromeda. Look down to see unfurling green ferns, broad-leafed hostas, bright Virginia bluebells, and yellow woods-poppy. 

Camellia Garden

Camellias are some of the most stunning flowers you can find at Brookside Gardens. Set against dark-green glossy leaves the bright, large-petaled camellia blossoms seem to glow. In the Camellia Garden at Brookside you’ll find unique varieties of this evergreen shrub blooming throughout the year. Some varieties flower in the late fall and last through early winter like the white-flowered ‘Winter’s Waterlily’ and the charming pink ‘Winter’s Interlude’. Spicy-scented ribbon-petaled witch-hazel flowers accompany these cold-weather camellias through the winter. In spring, the underlying perennials start to come into bloom. You can spot bright yellow daffodils and jonquils rising from the leaf litter and orange bishop’s hat putting out delicate spiked flowers. In late spring and summer, new camellias bloom, like the bright ‘Tama-no-ura’ with its hot-pink petals surrounding a bouquet of yellow stamens. Another spring-bloomer is the ‘Bernice Boddy’ with its wide, pale pink petals. In the summer, the camellias are joined by hardy begonia and feathery sweetbox. Make your way to the Camellia Garden every season to catch a glimpse of each spectacular variety. 

Winter Garden

The Winter Garden is wonderfully different form the rest of the gardens, in that its most colorful in the coldest months. In late winter and early spring, bare yellow-twig and red-twig dogwood branches stand out from the drab dormant vegetation of the other gardens. Weeping tendrils of yellow-flowered winter jasmine pour over the beds. Christmas fern and red spider lily cover the ground in a carpet of green. Evergreen hollies and bare-branched winterberries are decorated with bright red fruits. Look for the paperbush with its hanging bundles of sweet-scented yellow and white flowers. Notice the spidery witch-hazels flowers in yellow and copper. In contrast to the abundance of color in winter and spring, the Winter Garden turns white in the summer, designed to look snow-covered during the hottest months. Look for tall clusters of white hydrangeas and azaleas. The quince tree in the center of the garden has beautiful white blossoms. Along the ground, you can find plumes of white astilbe, delicate cups of anemone flowers, and the tiny bright blooms of bugleweed and lungwort. 

Children’s Garden

In the Children’s Garden, kids can play and learn among the colorful flowers. This garden is filled with engaging objects and curiosities to explore, as well as natural wonders. Let your kids’ imaginations run wild as they row away in our rowboat or teach their favorite subject in our pint-sized schoolhouse. Check out a donated book from the colorfully painted Little Library and read together on the plush lawn behind the Visitors Center. During our winter celebration, Garden of Lights, the adjacent path in transformed into a giant glowing caterpillar you can walk right through. In summer, look closely at the milkweed, black-eyed Susan’s, and purple coneflower by the picket fence to see local pollinators like monarch butterflies and hummingbirds. This year, the garden’s theme, Exploring Maryland, highlights native plants and favorite pastimes of the Chesapeake Bay State. 

Overlook

The Overlook was designed as a multi-functional space to support programs and events. During the week, it is used for school and tour bus parking with a seating area overlooking the Aquatic Garden. For special events, it can be tented for weddings and other social occasions. And during festivals, the Overlook is used for food trucks and other vendors.

Underlook

The Underlook is a restful, shady spot for visitors to enjoy the view of the Aquatic Garden ponds while listening to the burbling water of the adjacent fountain.  

Aquatic Garden

Shaded by deciduous trees and tucked next to our namesake brook, the Aquatic Garden showcases water-loving plants in two beautiful ponds. Walk out to the Anderson Pavilion in the western pond for a scenic look over the water. In Spring and Summer, you’ll see golden Japanese irises, daffodils and azaleas in bloom along the edges of the ponds and down the banks of the brook. Keep your eyes peeled for our resident green heron, slightly more diminutive than its blue cousin who tends to spend time in the Gude Garden. If you stroll along the path bordering the Visitor’s Center, you’ll find ecologically conscious plantings highlighting cover crops that protect and enrich the soil, as well as native plants like black-eyed Susans, ironweed, and bottlebrush buckeye. For a shady private walk, take the path along the northern perimeter that leads you from the Aquatic Garden, through the back of the colorful Azalea Garden, and finishes at the lush Rain Garden. 

Anderson Pavilion

Framed by wisteria, a gently arching bridge leads you to the Anderson Island, which is capped by a shady pavilion that supports climbing red honeysuckle and an espaliered blue Atlas cedar.  The Anderson Pavilion is the perfect perch for a bright afternoon of watching dragonflies skim across the water or dozens of turtles lazily sunning on logs. The steep banks of the island are densely planted with perennials and grasses, interspersed with bright spring bulbs.

Parking Garden

The Parking Garden is a beautiful example of large-scale functional gardening. This garden has been designed to increase the quality of the surrounding environment while benefiting the creatures that visit and reside at Brookside Gardens. The beds, hillside meadow, and permeable pavement work together to collect and filter rainwater before it flows to the ponds in the Aquatic Gardens. Densely planted perennials and grasses leave little room for weeds and don’t require pesticides or fertilizers. Keep your eye out for dainty daisy-shaped fleabane and red-stemmed white-flowered bowman’s root in early spring. Look for bright lobelia and tall coneflowers in the summer, and beautiful asters and goldenrods in the fall.  In winter, the vegetation is left uncut to provide food and shelter for wildlife like red-wing blackbirds and chipmunks. In spring, the gardeners cut back the vegetation and use the recycled plant material as natural mulch.