Tea, flowers and friends await you at Summersweet Garden Nursery in East Hardwick, formerly known as Perennial Pleasures Nursery. Rachel Kane started Perennial Pleasures in 1980 when she was still a college student at the University of Vermont. She championed rare heirloom flowers and ran the nursery out of her family’s 1840s brick home. In the mid-1980s, Rachel’s British mother, Judith Kane, started serving English cream teas to visitors in the gardens.

A tradition was born, and many Vermonters have made the trek to the Northeast Kingdom to enjoy scones, tea and flowers. Judith passed away in 2017, but teatime lives on. In 2021, Rachel renamed the business Summersweet Gardens and refocused on native plants such as the summersweet shrub, which attracts many pollinators. She has about 800 varieties of plants, including more than 100 kinds of phlox, which she celebrates every August during Phlox Fest.

In her latest episode of “Stuck in Vermont,” Seven Days’ Eva Sollberger takes a trip to the Kingdom to get a garden tour with Rachel and taste a fresh scone with whipped cream and homemade jam. You can enjoy tea at Summersweet Gardens from early June through mid-September; online reservations are recommended.

Filming date: 8/11/24

Music: Chris Haugen, “Green Green Garden”

This episode of Stuck in Vermont was supported by New England Federal Credit Union.

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Tea Time at Perennial Pleasures in East Hardwick

In 1970, landscape architect Tom Kane, his wife, Judith, and their children moved to an 1840s brick house in East Hardwick. Ten years later, daughter Rachel Kane started a garden nursery called Perennial Pleasures at the family home.

This article appears in Aug 21-27, 2024.

Seven Days senior multimedia producer Eva Sollberger has been making her award-winning video series "Stuck in Vermont" since 2007. In 2024, she won first place from the Association of Alternative Newsmedia for her video, “Barbie Collector.” She received...