# Brookside Gardens

The Brookside Gardens are public gardens located within Wheaton Regional Park, at 1800 Glenallan Avenue, Silver Spring, Maryland. The gardens are open daily without charge. However, certain annual events there are held that may charge a fee. The gardens hosts a "Garden of Lights" exhibit that features a light display during the holiday season.

## History

The garden grounds were originally part of a landscaping and garden center on a small farm owned by Stadler Nurseries. Brookside was the first botanical gardens in the State of Maryland.
Brookside Gardens opened to the public on July 13, 1969, with a conservatory and 25 acres (10 ha) developed as gardens. The landscaping and conservatory were designed by Hans Hanses and Carl Schoening, respectively. More gardens have been added and refined to showcase local species over the current 54 acres (22 ha). Hans remarked "the main idea for the garden was to supply the average homeowner with ideas for his own use. Everything you see here is not exotic, but something which grows well in the metropolitan area and which one can buy in any garden center.".
A donation from Elizabeth Turner made possible the construction of a Visitors Center, opening in June 1998, with classroom and meeting space.

## Features

* Aquatic Garden – water-loving plants with two ponds and gazebo.
* Azalea Garden – over 300 varieties of azaleas represented by 2,000 plants. Also rhododendrons, witchhazels, hollies, Japanese andromeda, sweet-box, skimmia, and shade-tolerant perennials.
* Butterfly Garden – Seasonal in summer only. Admission fee.
* Children's “School's Outside” Garden
* Conservatories – seasonal displays and special exhibits. The surrounding garden contains a collection of unusual conifers and groundcovers.
* Dry Stone Sphere—A stacked stone sculpture, by stone artist Devin Devine.
* Fragrance Garden
* Gude Garden – a Japanese-style landscape with bamboo, beech, unusual conifers, dogwood, and groundcovers, as well as an island teahouse overlooking the ponds.
* Maple Terrace – raised beds within a planting of ‘Suminagashi’ Japanese maples.
* a Japanese teahouse overlooking a pond stocked with koi.
* Perennial Garden – wisterias, roses, Jasmine stephanense, buddleia, and Prunus × cistena, allium, geranium, sedum, panicum, lespedeza, calamagrostis, anemones, asters, acanthus, and agastache, etc.
* Reflection Terrace – a memorial to the ten individuals killed in the October 2002 D.C. sniper attacks.
* Rock Garden – spring flowering bulbs with grasses and conifers.
* Rose Garden – all types of roses, including hybrid tea, rugosa hybrids, grandiflora, English, miniature, floribunda, shrub, groundcover, polyantha, climber, Gallica, hybrid musk, and the garden rose.
* Trial Garden – spring flowering bulbs, then summer displays of new and unusual plant varieties.
* Woodland Walk – forested wetland with bald cypress, tulip poplar, spicebush, and groundcover of mayapple, fern, and skunk cabbage. A native plant garden includes approximately 124 species and cultivars of Maryland native plants.
* Yew Garden – a garden room within yew hedges.

## Gallery

* Dry Stone Sphere, by artist Devin Devine, completed September 2017The Sniper Memorial at Brookside Gardens
* Names of victims at the Sniper Memorial
* View from the Reflection Terrace over the Aquatic Garden
* Close-up of the inscription at the pond at the Reflection Terrace
* Dedication Plaque at the Reflection Terrace
* Flowers
* Flowers
* Flowers with butterfly