Green Spring Gardens (31 acres) is a public park, including a historic 18th-century plantation house "Green Spring", which is the heart of a national historic district listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 2003. The

Fairfax County Fairfax County, officially the County of Fairfax, is a County (United States), county in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia. It is part of Northern Virginia and borders both the city of Alexandria, Virginia, Alexandria and ...

Park Authority operates Green Spring with the assistance of various nonprofit organizations concerned with history and gardening. Open daily without charge, the street address is 4603 Green Spring Road,

Alexandria, Virginia Alexandria is an independent city in the northern region of the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States. It lies on the western bank of the Potomac River approximately south of downtown Washington, D.C. In 2020, the population was 159,467. ...

Holdings

The historic district encompasses two contributing buildings, two contributing sites, and two contributing structures located within the park. It includes the brick farmhouse, built about 1777–1784, a 19th-century

spring house A spring house, or springhouse, is a small building, usually of a single room, constructed over a spring. While the original purpose of a springhouse was to keep the spring water clean by excluding fallen leaves, animals, etc., the enclosing stru ...

, a family

cemetery A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek , "sleeping place") implies that the land is specifically designated as a buri ...

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology a ...

, subterranean brick vault, and a small 4-chambered stone structure. The property's landscape was redesigned in 1942, in the

Colonial Revival The Colonial Revival architectural style seeks to revive elements of American colonial architecture. The beginnings of the Colonial Revival style are often attributed to the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, which reawakened Americans to the archit ...

style by noted landscape architects

Beatrix Farrand Beatrix Cadwalader Farrand (née Jones; June 19, 1872 – February 28, 1959) was an American landscape gardener and landscape architect. Her career included commissions to design about 110 gardens for private residences, estates and country ho ...

and Walter Macomber. The house and grounds were donated to Fairfax County in 1970 by '' New Republic'' publisher

Michael Whitney Straight Michael Whitney Straight (September 1, 1916 – January 4, 2004) was an American magazine publisher, novelist, patron of the arts, a member of the prominent Whitney family, and a confessed spy for the KGB. Early life Straight was born in New Yor ...

and his wife Belinda Straight, who had moved their family to

Washington D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, Na ...

during Massive Resistance. an
''Accompanying four photos''
/ref> Its estate gardens (popular among local wedding photographers) feature

boxwood ''Buxus'' is a genus of about seventy species in the family Buxaceae. Common names include box or boxwood. The boxes are native to western and southern Europe, southwest, southern and eastern Asia, Africa, Madagascar, northernmost South ...

hedging,

rose A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be ...

s, and perennial as well as annual borders. The park also has a tropical greenhouse, a wooded stream valley with ponds and

gazebo A gazebo is a pavilion structure, sometimes octagonal or turret-shaped, often built in a park, garden or spacious public area. Some are used on occasions as bandstands. Etymology The etymology given by Oxford Dictionaries is "Mid 18th c ...

, a naturalistic native plant garden, and over 20 demonstration gardens. It is a member of the

North American Plant Collections Consortium The Plant Collections Network (PCN) (formerly the North American Plant Collections Consortium) is a group of North American botanical gardens and arboreta that coordinates a continent-wide approach to plant germplasm preservation, and promotes exce ...

for its Hamamelis collection (130 taxa, including all 4 species).

Gallery

File:Green Spring Farm, 4601 Green Spring Road, Annandale vicinity (Fairfax County, Virginia).jpg, Image of the house prior to the 1942 restoration File:Green Spring Gardens Fall 2013 (10107034893).jpg, Cacti at the park, 2013 File:Green Spring Gardens Park - boarwalk.JPG, Boardwalk in the park, 2015 File:Green Spring Gardens Park - visitors center and gift shop.JPG, Interior of the visitors' center, 2015 File:Green Spring - another tearoom.JPG, Interior of the house set up as a tearoom, 2015

References

External links

Green Spring Farm, 4601 Green Spring Road, Annandale, Fairfax County, VA
2 photos at

Historic American Buildings Survey Heritage Documentation Programs (HDP) is a division of the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) responsible for administering the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), and Historic American Landscapes ...

Green Spring Gardens Park
Botanical gardens in Virginia Parks in Fairfax County, Virginia Virginia municipal and county parks Museums in Fairfax County, Virginia Houses completed in 1784 Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia Houses in Fairfax County, Virginia National Register of Historic Places in Fairfax County, Virginia Historic American Buildings Survey in Virginia Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia {{US-garden-stub

Holdings

Gallery

See also

References

External links