Sunday 27 June the Shaw Mansion joins with Connecticut’s Historic Gardens in celebrating Historic Gardens Day. Included in the regular admission price will be special tours and lectures. In the morning Connecticut Master Gardeners will provide tours of the Shaw Mansion Garden and will preview the new herb garden beds planted in front of the Root Cellar. 
In the afternoon Miss Perkins and some of her friends from the 1860s will return to take over her garden. Miss Perkins will offer a guided tour sharing “the Language of Flowers,” and at the end of the day will they will portray a tableau vivant recreating Winslow Homer’s famous painting of a croquet match. Strawberry shortcake will also be available. It should be a lovely day to visit the garden.
Connecticut’s Historic Gardens is a collaboration of 14 historic sites across the state, each of which features the historic landscape as one of its attractions. Other sites close to New London include the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, and the Harkness Memorial State Park in Waterford. For more information view the Connecticut Historic Gardens WebSite.
The Shaw Mansion, located near the intersection of Bank and Tilley Streets in New London, has been the home of the New London County Historical Society since 1907. The one acre park-like environs of the house creates one of the largest green-spaces in the center of the city. Famous modernist landscape architect Christopher Tunnard created a design for the site in the wake of the devastation of the hurricane of 1938. His plan for the garden will be on view for Historic Garden Day.
Schedule for the day:
11 am Tour the garden with master gardener Susan Munger
12 noon “Herbs for the Historic Garden” presentation
1:30 pm “The Language of Flowers” a tour with “Miss Perkins”
2:30 pm Winslow Homer’s Croquet Match, a Tableaux Vivant