Now Open: Dumbarton Oaks’ ‘Wild’ Garden Gates

The heavy wooden gates of the 27-acre “wild” portion of the Dumbarton Oaks gardens were officially opened April 8, with enthusiastic speeches by elementary-school environmentalists, tours led by garden-club members, healthy snacks and tents offering activities and information.

The wooden gates to the lower garden, accessible from a “lovers’ lane” off R Street at 31st Street, were first opened to the public on April 12, 1941, when Mildred and Robert Bliss donated the “naturalistic” garden to the public via the National Park Service. It is the woodland-and-meadow portion of the historic estate’s formal gardens and, like them, was designed by Beatrix Farrand, America’s first woman landscape architect.

Over the decades, the carefully laid out composition of meadows, woods, streams, waterfalls, paths, bridges and a reflecting pond— not to mention a couple of faux stone cottages and a pet cemetery with engraved head stones — have slowly felt the effects of age and the encroaching urban environment.

“Hundreds of volunteers from school children and environmental groups to the Georgetown Garden Club have done thousands of hours of physical work to remove invasive plant life, restore stream beds and waterways, paths and ponds through the Dumbarton Oaks Park Conservancy,” said Frank Young, deputy superintendent of Rock Creek Park.