Monday, March 24, 2008

Local Color: Virginia's Historic Garden Week Tours

Still a month away - I feel like I am waiting for Christmas morning. The Albemarle-Charlottesville offerings for this year's Historic Garden Week Tours sound absolutely enchanting. As do the tours in nearby Staunton. I may have to make sure to carve out time for both.

I am particularly geeked about the Greenwood Country Homes and Gardens tours - open on April 20th and 21st. They entice me with the one-two punch that always sucked me in while living near Long Island's Gold Coast - bea-you-tee-ful gardens and awesome estates. With names like Casa Maria, Bellevue, Blue Ridge Farm, Ramsay and Piedmont.

The Week's garden guide teases with some details of each garden. Birdbath gardens, picnic houses, English glass greenhouses, mysterious underground rooms under one garden, rose and boxwood parterres, stone cottages, allees of different types of trees. Reading about them is one thing - but seeing the real deal will be another experience all together. I am so there.

3 comments:

Tree hugging said...

As a professional who works normal business hours, I'm irritated on a yearly basis by how they arrange these things in the middle of the week during working hours. It's almost like they think the only people who care about Gardens don't have day jobs...

The Diva said...

If you do get to go, would you show us some pictures when you return?~~dee

Tracey said...

Photos? Absolutely, Dee.

Lonnie - I know of your frustration - that is the main reason why this will be the first year I will get to see some of these gardens. Maternity leave!