Elegance in Bloom

“I like to say I came for the plants and stayed for the people,” says Sandra Gilpatrick, president of Beacon Hill Garden Club, an organization with roots nearly a century old and an ever-flourishing reputation.

Gilpatrick, a full-time financial advisor with her own business and a penchant for lush floral print dresses, has an extensive knowledge of, and passion for, the club’s mission and its 60 members—all Beacon Hill residents and gardening enthusiasts like herself.

Professional watercolorist Gertrude Beals Bourne founded the club in 1928, when Back Bay was steadily displacing Beacon Hill as Boston’s most prestigious neighborhood. Bourne hosted members in her whimsical home in Beacon Hill Flats—the so-called Sunflower Castle, which still stands today. Other early members included Eleanor Raymond, an architect who created the first solar-powered house, and Arthur Shurcliff, an influential landscape artist who designed Colonial Williamsburg’s extensive gardens.

The club members’ gardens are celebrated for their beauty and are routinely featured in magazines and on documentary-style TV shows, such as “This Old House.” Each year, the club’s main fundraiser, the Hidden Gardens of Beacon Hill Tour, draws thousands of visitors who come to admire these patrician plots, the homes they grace, and indirectly, the people who own them.

Keeping Boston Green

The club isn’t merely a haven for wealthy horticulture lovers. It’s an active nonprofit organization whose members maintain prominent public green spaces in and around the neighborhood. These cultivated plots, which many may wrongly assume are preserved by the city, are in fact planned and planted by the club’s members.

For example, they replant the Charles Street post office’s window box each season (this March they added early blooming hellebore and ivy). They also landscape Codman Island, the small plot at the intersection of Charles and Beacon Streets, which features cheerful Montauk daisies that bloom from spring through October.

The club keeps the gardens outside the Old North Church, which attracts tens of thousands of visitors each year. A plaque acknowledges the work the club has done, with help from a grant from the Garden Club of America.

Gilpatrick explains that the spirit of the club’s mission boils down to science: biophilia, the human desire to connect with the natural world, is an innate quality that all of us—even the most dedicated city dwellers—have in common.

“Humans are meant to be in nature,” says Gilpatrick. “We’re biologically wired for it. Being around greenery reduces your stress levels. Plants just make you feel better.”

Getting One’s Hands Dirty

Qualifications for club membership include living in Beacon Hill and having a garden—one with real dirt, not just potted plants. Its size can be modest. Gilpatrick, who bought her home in 2007, says she has one of the smaller gardens in the club, which she estimates is about 4 by 18 feet.

The previous owner had planted some hydrangea and a snowball tree, which didn’t make it, and Gilpatrick and her husband spent years rescaping and replanting, learning as they went.

“Gardening in an urban environment is very challenging. There’s a lot of shade on Beacon Hill. I actually joined because I was struggling a bit, like, okay, what’s going to grow in this place? I wanted to learn more about what plants would thrive here.”

New members must be invited by existing members. Through family connections, Gilpatrick met Anne Sullivan, a longstanding club member who managed her introduction. A neighbor seconded her. Gilpatrick dug in, worked hard, chaired committees. She became vice president in 2022 and president in 2024, a two-year term she’ll hold until June 2026.

Members are required to attend monthly meetings, participate in civic projects, and open their own gardens to the public on the annual tour. The club hosts workshops, lectures and educational opportunities through the Gardening Club of America, which offers trips granting exclusive access to private gardens abroad.

Gilpatrick loves visiting gardens everywhere she goes. “My husband took me to Kew Gardens in England for a recent birthday, and it was marvelous. Here in the U.S., Florida has a lot to offer. The Orchid Society is down there. Fairchild Gardens in Coral Gables is one of my favorites. NASA works with them to see what will grow in outer space. It’s fabulous.”

Revealing Hidden Gardens

For the past 97 years, the club has showcased member gardens and portions of their homes during its annual fundraising event, the Hidden Gardens of Beacon Hill Tour, held on the third Thursday in May. A decade ago, the club added the Hidden Gardens Soiree, a lavish garden party that offers a preview of a few of the gardens on the next day’s tour.

Both the soiree and tour are immensely popular, and tickets quickly sell out. Gilpatrick advises booking early and following the club’s Instagram feed for the announcement, which happens around Thanksgiving.

The tour is different each year, so repeat guests never have the same experience twice. Gardens range from modest to grand in design and content, with some sporting statuary, fountains, and hothouses. Most are shaded, and many have quirks unique to Beacon Hill, such as the enclosed garden on Pinckney Street, a new feature on this year’s tour. Installed by Boston-based designer Ben Bungert, the garden is surrounded by brick, wooden latticework, antique mirrors and draped purple wisteria framing the entryway. The garden backs up against the Myrtle Street playground, and Bungert says the surrounding soundscape, along with a rustic water fountain, adds a musical touch.

“At any time of day, you can hear birds singing and children laughing,” says Bungert. “It’s a special oasis in the middle of the city.”

Most of the nearly 2,000 Tour attendees hail from New England, but visitors have come from as far as Japan. Because the date is close to Mother’s Day, many mothers and daughters have turned it into an annual tradition, and a source of joy for a lot of people, according to Gilpatrick.

Ticket sales for both events, along with sponsorships, create a seed fund the club draws from to award grants to local organizations that help preserve green spaces around Boston. Typical awards range from $500 to $5,000 and go to organizations that demonstrate they’re engaged in planting and landscaping work that benefits the public. The club also gives larger gifts every few years to major projects, such as the Esplanade’s new welcome center.

Gilpatrick encourages new organizations to apply for grants via the club’s website.

“There’s so many things that can be done to preserve urban green spaces, and we’re here to help fund that work,” says Gilpatrick.

It’s Not Easy Being Green

Humans in dense cities have always prized green spaces, but with real estate at a premium, especially in tony Beacon Hill, preserving such areas for public use is a constant battle. Climate and critters also take a toll—rats in particular.

Gilpatrick mentions a friend of hers, a fellow club member, who had her entire garden devastated by rats the night before it was to be shown on the tour. The same has happened to Gilpatrick. Not long ago, she wanted native plants in her garden and invested in several expensive specimens from the Native Plant Trust, a botanical garden in Framingham. “I had some lovely Jacob’s Ladder and a number of other beautiful plants. But they ended up being a feast for the rats,” she sighs.

Lack of sunlight is another problem. As is salt from the snowplows, which gets into planters and ruins the pH of the soil, killing the plants. Then there are people who fail to curb their dogs. “Please, dog owners of Beacon Hill, do not let your pets pee in those tree pits. The urine is not good for the soil,” she pleads.

Despite those challenges, gardening is meaningful work. Gilpatrick insists that the importance of trees for cleaner air, shade, flood management and beauty can’t be underrated. She quotes Lady Bird Johnson, a passionate campaigner for the National Park Service and the Highway Beautification Act of 1965, among other pro-environmental legislation:

“For the environment after all is where we all meet; where we all have a mutual interest; it is one thing that all of us share. It is not only a mirror of ourselves, but a focusing lens on what we can become.”

Gilpatrick enjoys knowing the club is improving the everyday quality of life for people. “I like to think we help our residents and our visitors breathe a little easier.”

Photograph by Claire Vail