Topiary Garden OPEN Oct. 1, 2, 8, 9 & 10. Closed for the season after Oct. 10

Let your imagination run wild at Green Animals Topiary Garden! Bring a picnic basket and enjoy a day of fun romping in the menagerie at this lush country estate. Can you spy the camel? Sneak a peek at the unicorn, but watch out for bears! And don’t worry, the dog won’t bite! Snap a selfie with your favorite!

Picnic with the animals. Picnic baskets most welcome.

Kids of all ages will delight at the more than 80 topiary creations crafted from California privet, yew, and English boxwood, some of which originated a century ago!

Open mid-April through mid-October, lush Green Animals Topiary Garden is always ablaze with color.  For more than 100 years, the seven-acre seaside estate has been home to creative, sculptured trees. Now integrated with 67,849 flower bulbs, the garden delights with a plethora of blooms six months a year!

 

A lion, giraffe & bears... oh, my! Plus, thousands of flowers in bloom!

Green Animals, the oldest topiary garden in the nation, also boasts more than 35 formal flowerbeds, geometric pathways, arbors, fruit trees, and vegetable and herb gardens. There truly is something for everyone at Green Animals.

Recognized by the American Daffodil Society as one of just 28 official Daffodil Display Gardens in the United States – and one of only three in New England – the garden showcases more than 18,000 daffodils planted by the Chief Horticulturist Dan Christina and his crew. There are 58 varieties representing all 13 divisions and 19 color codes with evocative names like Misty Glen, King Alfred and Queens Day.

Thirty-seven thousand tulips contribute more color during the spring before late spring perennials like columbine, lupine and coral bells give way to summer annuals, hydrangeas, daylilies and countless more unique specimens. In the fall, highlights include late-blooming mums, asters, daisies, dahlias and more.

Stroll the Gardens & Grounds Package   
Enjoy the gardens & fresh air with our Stroll the Gardens & Grounds package. Stroll among the animals at Green Animals, picnic with a green giraffe or take a selfie with a unicorn. Picnic baskets welcome!

History
This small country estate was purchased in 1872 by Thomas E. Brayton (1844-1939), Treasurer of the Union Cotton Manufacturing Company in Fall River, Massachusetts. It consisted of seven acres of land, with a white clapboard summer residence, farm outbuildings, a pasture and a vegetable garden. Gardener Joseph Carreiro, superintendent of the property from 1905 to 1945, and his son-in-law, George Mendonca, superintendent until 1985, were responsible for creating the topiaries.

Carreiro was recruited to design and maintain ornamental and edible gardens as part of a self-sufficient estate. Besides planting fruit trees, perennial beds and  vegetable gardens, he experimented with trimming some fast-growing shrubs into unique forms. The first topiaries were started in the estate's greenhouse in 1912 and later moved.

Mr. Brayton's daughter, Alice, gave the estate its name because of the profusion of "green animals." She made it her permanent residence in 1939. Miss Brayton was an avid gardener and loved to entertain. She hosted a party for Jacqueline Bouvier (Kennedy) in her debut season and for years entertained young Caroline and John Kennedy at parties to celebrate the harvest. She also welcomed the Eisenhower family when they were in Newport, and regularly allowed the public to enjoy the grounds. Upon her death in 1972, at the age of 94, Miss Brayton left Green Animals to The Preservation Society of Newport County. Today, Green Animals remains as a rare example of a self-sufficient estate combining formal topiaries, vegetable and herb gardens, orchards and a Victorian house overlooking Narragansett Bay. 

Only certified service animals are permitted on any of the Preservation Society properties. No other pets are permitted in the houses or on the grounds. This will be strictly enforced during the COVID-19 recovery period. We also request that pets not be left in your vehicle while you take your tour, as temperatures inside a locked car will quickly become unsafe and even deadly.