Enjoy a presentation and an exclusive tour of the privately owned Blue Garden with Director Sarah Vance, followed by time for lunch and strolling on your own in downtown Newport. After lunch, we’ll travel to the Green Animals Topiary Garden before heading home. The field trip, sponsored by Tower Hill Botanic Garden, will take place Thursday, August 2. Group will leave from Tower Hill at 8 am and return by 5:30. If you wish to meet the group in Rhode Island, call 508.869.6111.

The Blue Garden was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., and the Olmsted firm from 1910-1918 for Arthur Curtiss and Harriet Parsons James for their Newport estate, Beacon Hill House. Blasted from the surrounding ledge, this garden room is a classical form with formal beds planted with blue and white flowering perennials, annuals, and vines. The garden is framed by evergreen trees that enclose the space and buffer the transition from the formal symmetry of the garden to the windswept, rocky landscape. The 125-acre James estate was eventually divided into smaller residential properties, one of which included the Blue Garden. The property was purchased in 2012 by Dorrance Hamilton, a resident of Newport who had a deep interest in horticulture and preservation. Only the pools, runnel, and part of a pergola remained; the architecture and remaining features of the spaces had disappeared, subsumed under a thick covering of invasive trees and vines. Thanks to the vision and generosity of Dorrance Hamilton, the garden was restored using original drawings and photographs from the archives of the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site in Brookline, Massachusetts.

The Green Animals Topiary Garden, located in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, is the oldest and most northern topiary garden in the United States. The 7-acre estate overlooks the Narragansett Bay. It contains a large collection of topiaries including eighty sculptured trees. Favorites include teddy bears, a camel, a giraffe, an ostrich, an elephant and two bears made from sculptured California privet, yew, and English boxwood. There are over 35 formal flower beds, geometric pathways, rose arbor, grape arbor, fruit trees, and vegetable and herb gardens. A greenhouse is used extensively to provide seedlings used on the estate. The 1859 Victorian Brayton house museum contains a small display of vintage toys and the original family furnishings.

Tower Hill Member $125, Non-member $150; includes transportation, admissions and guided tour of the Blue Garden. Register at www.towerhillbg.org.