The Gardens at Quincy Homestead

Quincy Homestead is part of the original land Edmund Quincy I acquired for a farm in the 1630s.  Until shortly before the Revolutionary War, it was home to five generations of the Quincys. Descendants from Edmund Quincy II include President John Quincy Adams and Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes.  Edmund Quincy III expanded the house and laid out lovely gardens early in the eighteenth century. His son Edmund IV was an accomplished horticulturist who wrote books and essays on diverse agricultural topics. He increased the ornamental gardens, developing the farm into a series of gardens and orchards.  Since 1999, volunteers have committed themselves to the ambitious task of restoring the historic gardens. With help, they have re-planted the parterres, added ornamental plants, medicinal shrubs, and developed a comprehensive herb garden outside the kitchen. In 2002, they planted over 2,000 bulbs appropriate for the eighteenth-century Homestead gardens: iris, scilla, tulips and daffodils. The gardens, house, and collection provide a wonderful historical record of daily life over a span of three centuries. The Homestead is a National Historic Landmark. A public-private partnership, it is owned by the state but its tours are managed and its collection owned by The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in The Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Website: nscdama.org/properties/dorothy-quincy-homestead