Gardens
PEM’s campus is an accredited arboretum and offers numerous gardens and green spaces for exploration, including the 5,000-square-foot Museum Garden accessible from the galleries and the Ropes Mansion Garden that is open to the public from dawn to dusk. The acreage around the James B. and Mary Lou Hawkes Collection Center in Rowley is also part of the arboretum designation.
Museum Garden
PEM’s serene 5,000-square-foot garden offers a mental and acoustic break from your museum experience. Designed by Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, the garden space features nearly 300 varieties of shrubs, 60 trees, 37 species of flowers, an 11-foot cascading water feature and multiple benches to sit and relax.
Ropes Mansion Garden
Located at 318 Essex Street (0.4 miles from PEM), the Ropes Mansion garden blooms with plant life that’s as appealing to bees and butterflies as it is to visitors. Designed by Salem botanist and horticulturist John Robinson in 1912, the one-acre Colonial Revival garden welcomes thousands of visitors each year. Located in Salem’s McIntire Historic District, the tranquil space is open to the public 365 days a year, from dawn to dusk, at no charge. Leashed dogs are welcome in the garden.
Did you know we’re an arboretum?
PEM’s varied campuses have recently been designated as a Level 1 Arboretum by The ArbNet Arboretum Accreditation Program and the Morton Arboretum. The museum’s gardens and green spaces reflect horticultural efforts from the 17th century to today and cover 4.1 acres in the downtown area and McIntire Historic District of Salem, MA. An additional 5.3-acre campus in Rowley, MA is home to PEM’s James B. and Mary Lou Hawkes Collection Center and its associated grounds. Notable plantings include a 100-year-old copper beech tree at the Ropes Mansion Garden and an array of species along the museum’s Axelrod Walkway, including dawn redwoods (Metasequoia glyptostroboides), Carolina silverbells (Halesia carolina), cryptomeria (cryptomeria japonica) and ginkgos (ginkgo biloba).
Keep exploring
Blog
‘Beyond words’: PEM’s garden team shares excitement over new arboretum certification
8 Min read
Blog
Advocating for Agriculture With PEM’s Gardeners
3 min read
Blog
Efforts underway to assess health of copper beech tree in Ropes Mansion Garden
6 min read
Blog
An odyssey into PEM’s new garden
4 min read
