Nothing gets the design ideas flowing better than a walk through a captivating garden. Throughout the spring and summer, private gardens across the country are opened to garden enthusiasts, through the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days program. Some are small, personal gems and others are sprawling life long love affairs. They all reflect the passion of their gardeners and will help reignite your mania for designing your own garden.

A word of warning: Don’t be surprised if you come home ready to rip everything out and move it around or even start all over again. Seeing what another garden designer has accomplished opens your eyes to what is possible.

The Open Days program gives you access to awe-inspiring private gardens that you would otherwise probably never see. Open Days is a means of fund raising for the Garden Conservancy’s efforts to ensure that exemplary private gardens will be maintained for public enjoyment and education even after the creating gardeners are no longer able to tend them. It’s a win-win situation. They do good works and we get to view secret treasures and take the garden design inspiration back to our own corner of paradise.

Note: As of 2015, the Open Days Directory is no longer available in a printed version. The complete list of open gardens can be found on the Garden Conservancy website. The list is updated regularly. You can also register there, to receive email updates of upcoming open gardens.

There is a nominal fee at each garden visited.