Breathtaking Perennial Gardens at a Connecticut Country Home

Interior designer Philip Gorrivan never walks his gardens in Washington, Connecticut without a set of clippers in hand — there are always weeds, and across six different gardens on this undulating country property, there's always something to tend.

When Philip bought the late-18th-century house, it sat on a heavily wooded lot; you could barely see it from the street. The first couple of years went into clearing — cutting down trees, rebuilding the ancient stone walls, and letting the light in.

One magical result: once the trees came down, he discovered dramatic rock outcroppings across the property, which became the foundation for the raised perennial beds that define the gardens now. His approach to planting mirrors his approach to interiors — mix shapes, add structure where he can, and let the rest grow wild. The structural anchor is a run of boxwoods at the center, planted as babies and now six feet tall, which is why the house is also nicknamed Boxwood Row.

Around them, the perennial gardens shift color month to month: roughly 100 peony plants that open first, followed by hydrangeas that bloom all season — he calls a recent year "the year of the hydrangea" — then asters and echinacea into the fall. He favors natives that come back happily year after year, and has learned by trial and error to cut back invasives like loosestrife before they take over. The landscape is full of quiet escapes.

A small patio where he let self-seeded plants grow up through the stones. A pool given an irregular, pond-like shape to conform to a natural rock outcropping and settle into the land rather than stand out. A 40-foot treehouse with bunk beds he built for his son.

Hidden reading nooks with a hammock. And plenty of wildlife — this is owl country, hence the house's other name, Owls Nest — including the 400-pound bear he once watched swimming and blowing bubbles in the pool. These days he grows mostly cut flowers, because nothing beats gathering fresh blooms from the property on a weekend.