The 5 Free Public Gardens in and Around Morris County, NJ, and What to See at Each One

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Morris County keeps four public gardens that cost nothing to walk into, and most of the county drives past all four of them. Three belong to the Morris County Park Commission. One sits behind a museum on a residential street in Morristown. A fifth, worth the extra ten minutes, sits just over the county line inside Morristown National Historical Park.

Late September and October are the best weeks of the year to see any of them. The summer crowds are gone, the conifers and Japanese maples come into their own, and every one of these places is open every single day.

The Frelinghuysen Arboretum, Morris Township

The biggest and the easiest to visit. The Frelinghuysen Arboretum sits on 124 acres at 353 East Hanover Avenue in Morris Township, and it is open daily from 8am to sunset with no admission charge. The grounds hold nearly 2,000 specimen trees and plantings spread across 28 separate garden areas, anchored by a Colonial Revival mansion built in 1891.

If you only have an hour, walk the Rose Garden, the Japanese Maple Lawn and the Rhododendron Loop. The Japanese maples are the reason to come in October. There is also a Winter Garden built specifically to hold interest after everything else has gone brown, which makes this the one garden on the list that still rewards a January visit.

One rule catches people out. Pets are not permitted at any Morris County arboretum, under Article XII, Section K of the Park Commission rules. If you are looking for somewhere to bring the dog instead, we have a whole guide to dog friendly Morris County.

Willowwood Arboretum, Chester Township

Willowwood is the one that feels like a secret. It sits at 300 Longview Road in Chester Township, open sunrise to sunset on weekdays and from 8am to sunset on weekends, and it holds more than 2,100 types of native and exotic plants across seven distinct garden areas.

The history is the draw. Brothers Robert and Henry Tubbs bought the farm in 1908 to pursue horticulture. Dr. Benjamin Blackburn, a botanist who taught at Rutgers and Drew, started spending weekends there in the 1930s, helped rejuvenate the grounds after the Second World War, and was formally adopted by Henry Tubbs in 1949. The property later passed to Rutgers University, and the Morris County Park Commission acquired it from Rutgers in March 1980.

Autumn is conifer season here, which is a genuinely different kind of fall walk than the one you get chasing red maples. Pets are not permitted.

Bamboo Brook Outdoor Education Center, Chester Township

Bamboo Brook is next door to Willowwood at 170 Longview Road, open daily from 8am to sunset, and the two together make one easy afternoon. The property runs 687 acres, with five core garden areas restored to their 1945 appearance.

What makes Bamboo Brook worth a stop is who designed it. Martha Brookes Hutcheson was one of the first American women to practice landscape architecture professionally, and this was her own home. The gardens are a working demonstration of her ideas: formal vistas, natural topography used rather than flattened, plants linking one garden room to the next, and water treated as a design element instead of an ornament. It reads less like a park and more like an argument.

The Garden at Macculloch Hall Historical Museum, Morristown

The only one on this list that is not a park, and the one most locals have never walked. The garden at Macculloch Hall Historical Museum, 45 Macculloch Avenue in Morristown, is open daily from 8am to dusk and is free, whether or not you go into the museum itself.

George and Louisa Macculloch bought the 26 acre parcel in 1810 and gardened it for food, and George kept detailed journals of what went in and what came out. Museum founder W. Parsons Todd worked with the Garden Club of Morristown starting in the 1950s to restore and redesign it.

Three things to find while you are there. The heirloom roses include cultivars that predate 1920. The wisteria was a gift to the Maccullochs from Commodore Matthew Perry in 1857. And the sassafras is believed to be the second oldest and largest sassafras tree in New Jersey. A sundial has sat on the upper lawn since 1876, and perennials carry the color through summer and fall. If the house itself interests you, it also appears in our guide to the best museums in Morris County.

Cross Estate Gardens, Bernardsville, just over the line

This one is not in Morris County, but it is part of Morristown National Historical Park, so we are counting it. The Cross Estate Gardens sit on Old Jockey Hollow Road in Bernardsville, open dawn to dusk, with free parking and no entry fee.

The landscape is early twentieth century Arts and Crafts. The centerpiece is a wisteria covered pergola carried on 19 stone columns, planted with blue and white wisteria and male kiwi vines. There is also a mountain laurel allee, a formal perennial garden, a native plant garden, a fern garden and a walled garden on two levels, plus specimen trees including a silver maple and a dawn redwood.

It survives on volunteer labor. A crew works there every Wednesday morning from March to December, and student interns have been hired every year since 1995. The gardens run as a project of the New Jersey Historical Garden Foundation in cooperation with the National Park Service.

Before you go

All five are free and all five are open every day. None of the three arboreta allow pets. The Park Commission properties close at sunset rather than at a fixed clock time, so in late October that means a little after 6pm and by late November closer to 4:30pm. Bring proper shoes for Bamboo Brook and Cross Estate, where the paths are grass and gravel rather than pavement.

If you are chasing color rather than horticulture, we keep a separate guide to fall foliage in Morris County. And if the visit leaves you wanting to plant something of your own, here are the top garden centers in Morris County.