Surrounded by rocky New England coastline, the alluring town of Rockport juts out into the Atlantic Ocean at the eastern end of Cape Ann, Massachusetts. With pleasantly mild summers and winters not as harsh as inland New England, the tempering winds of the ocean create a micro-climate conducive to coastal gardening. The local residents have long discovered the benefits of the mild Cape Ann climate, and they look forward each spring to cultivating the richly diverse plant-world of their backyard gardens. Inspired at times by the wilder look of a mature English landscape, at times by the more classical layout of a well-manicured French garden, the Rockport homeowners take pride in carefully bringing out the natural beauty of the coastal environs. This leads to summer days in which the private worlds of these gardens can only be described as “paradise.”

       Each year a selection of residential Rockport gardens are opened to a wider public, who are given the opportunity to freely roam the secluded, private realm of these living works of art. This Website is a simple visual presentation of the 2009 garden tour. Homes and the tour route are not identified, the point here being to highlight the natural beauty of the gardens themselves. Each of the photo albums at the right can be viewed as individuals images or as a running slide show. Also included is an ‘identification quiz’ of actual plants found in the tour gardens, as well as a link to a tourist guide of Rockport, published in 1924. Since each of the albums are quite large, there may be a delay before the entire album is loaded.

Garden Tour Albums

Presented By the Rockport Garden Club