Blithewold Mansion, Gardens and Arboretum
The Blithewold Mansion, Gardens and Arboretum is an arboretum of, located at 101 Ferry Road, Bristol, Rhode Island, midway between Newport and Providence, Rhode Island, on Bristol Harbor with views over Narragansett Bay. It includes a mansion, with a lawn and over 300 species of woody plants in its arboretum and gardens, including both native and exotic species.
The Mansion and its grounds were established in the 1890s by Augustus and Bessie Van Wickle as their summer retreat. Augustus Van Wickle was from Hazleton, Pennsylvania, with a fortune in the coal-mining business and a donor of the Van Wickle gates at Brown University. Today's grounds are primarily the design of John DeWolf, and date between 1896 and 1913. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
Blithwold's grounds include species from North America, Europe, China and Japan. Specimen trees include magnolia, linden, Ginkgo, Black Tupelo, Dawn Redwood, Franklinia, Eastern Hemlock, various oaks and beeches. Other notable trees include a weeping Pagoda Tree, Hiba, Katsura, and Sugi. The grounds also include English Yews and Eastern Junipers, as well as what is claimed to be the largest Giant Sequoia on the East Coast, planted in 1911, and currently about tall.
Blithewold's Bamboo Grove covers an area nearly the size of a tennis court, and is planted with Phyllostachys aureosulcata, the Yellow-groove bamboo, which grows to tall.
Blithewold has maintained contacts with the Arnold Arboretum ever since 1926, when staff botanists visited Blithewold to see the Chinese toon tree in flower for what was believed to be the first time in the United States.
