Picture-Perfect Connecticut Gardens for Budding Photographers

High on a hill overlooking Hartford, scenic Wickham Park is home to eight distinctive gardens, each with a theme and dramatic design that makes it a favorite photo spot for wedding parties.  Photo spot: Anywhere that overlooks or frames the skyline view of our capital city. 

This Olmsted-designed park features a scenic overlook and a 90-foot limestone memorial to New Britain’s World War I fallen soldiers. Photo spot: When in bloom, the ring gardens that encircle the memorial are quite dramatic. Likewise, the overlook by the fountain offers sweeping views.

Ten acres of spectacular display gardens surround this well-known Litchfield nursery and garden center. It’s a great place to get inspiration for your home garden, and you can even take some beautiful flowers home through their curbside pickup service. Photo spot: Take their self-guided walk among the display gardens, where you’ll see different seasons, loads of color and stylish set-ups.

Over 15,000 rose bushes with 800 varieties come into full bloom in late June and often last into the fall. Photo spot: the rose arches are in full bloom from late June through August, making a perfect natural frame for family or wedding shots. 

The Osbourne Homestead features grounds that are landscaped with formal flower gardens, ornamental shrubs, and flowering trees, providing visitors with an endless pageant of color from spring through autumn. Photo spot: The butterfly garden features plants that attract butterflies — and photographers.

Enjoy panoramic views of Long Island Sound from this seaside estate, home to Eolia, the elegant summer mansion of the Harkness family and more than 230 acres of sweeping lawns and spectacular gardens. Photo spot: look for a spot that lets you combine elegant green scape with the sweeping water views for a truly dramatic effect.

These classic, English-style gardens in the Litchfield Hills of northwestern Connecticut are rich with color and texture, including multi-layered flowers, plants, ponds, walled gardens and statuary. Photo spot: Try an early visit the first Saturday of each month for a morning stroll or capture the sun and shadows among the brick walkways and charming architectural touches.

This popular dairy farm in Griswold is home to a spectacular display of sunflowers that draws visitors from all over. It’s beautiful to see and photograph, and of course best enjoyed with a scoop of fresh-from-the-farm ice cream from their pickup window. Photo spot: Anything at, near or within the field, mid to late July. Sunset if you can manage it. Small donation to benefit Make A Wish Foundation of CT.

Built in 1892, this already picturesque bridge across the Farmington River steps it up a notch each spring when flower boxes and hanging baskets bloom to life. Makes a great backdrop for special occasion, family and wedding photos. Photo spot: If bridge is empty (or at sunrise or sunset) stand on the bridge or view it from the banks of the Farmington River. Summer.

Designed by one of America’s first female landscape architects, Amy Cogswell, the colonial garden of the Webb-Dean-Stevens Museum offers a look back in time at early 20th-century landscape techniques. But it’s also a dramatic backdrop for weddings and other special events. Photo spot: in the garden by the arch near the Webb house.

The gardens that surround Woodstock’s Roseland Cottage seem to have been designed to precisely frame this elegant Gothic Revival house. Photo spot: Stand or sit on the lawn at the front of the house to capture the perfectly manicured hedges and colorful flower gardens.

A centerpiece of this property is the 1920s sunken garden designed by landscape architect Beatrix Farrand. Hill-Stead is also home to an extensive photography collection, just in case you need some extra inspiration. Photo spot: The Sunken Garden is home to birds and butterflies as well as flowers.

The gardens at Bellamy-Ferriday feature symmetrical flowerbeds planted with peonies and roses, flowering shrubs, and trees. Photo spot: Bring a higher tripod or selfie stick so you can see this amazing garden from above. All of the geometric shapes and edges come into full view from a slightly higher angle.

Walk among elegant gardens and picturesque riverscapes so lovely they gave inspiration to impressionist painters who once lived here. Photo spot: Play friendly giant as you visit the fairy village nestled among the grounds, or find a painting you like and try to recreate the location that may have inspired it.

The Gertrude Jekyll Gardens look like they were transported from the English countryside, where Gertrude herself created hundreds of elegant garden landscapes and built a reputation as one of the most famous garden designers of her time. Photo spot: The blue colonial-era Glebe House is certainly a focal point, especially on a blue-sky day. 

The gorgeous grounds of Weir Farm in Ridgefield are home to a colonial revival Sunken Garden and the restored Secret Garden, with a fountain, sundial, and rustic cedar fence. Photo spot: Since Weir Farm is a National Historic Site dedicated to American painting, you will find lots of places to photograph, but you may just be inspired to paint a landscape instead!