Longwood Gardens and more

SOLD OUT! Three-day Trip to Longwood Gardens, Mt. Cuba Center, Winterthur, Chanticleer Garden, RareFind Nursery

Tuesday, May 5th - Thursday, May 7th, 2009
To have your name put on the waiting list, please contact Barbara Levine

Longwood Gardens is the world's premier horticultural showplace. We will take a behind-the-scenes guided tour of Longwood's horticulture department to find out what it takes to plan, craft, and maintain their spectacular displays. We will spend the entire day exploring some of the 1050 acres of twenty indoor and twenty outdoor gardens.

Mt. Cuba Center is a 650-acre non-profit horticultural institution in northern Delaware, dedicated to the study, conservation, and appreciation of plants native to the Appalachian Piedmont region through garden display, education, and research. Their woodland wildflower gardens are recognized as the region's finest.

Winterthur's 1000-acre country estate encompasses rolling hills, streams, meadows, and forests. Founder Henry Francis du Pont (1880-1969) developed an appreciation of nature as a boy that served as the basis for his life's work in the garden. He selected the choicest plants from around the world to enhance the natural setting, arranging them in lyrical color combinations and carefully orchestrating a succession of bloom from late January to November. We will tour both the house and the gardens.

Chanticleer, in Wayne, Pennsylvania, was the estate known for its majestic trees and verdant lawns. Today, the focus is on plant combinations, containers, textures, and colors. In addition to the horticultural expertise of the Chanticleer staff, many employees have other talents that contribute to the uniqueness of the garden. The talents range from woodworking, stone carving, painting, and metal working, to the union of bamboo canes and rebar to provide creative supports.

RareFind Nursery, our last stop, is a mail order nursery that offers unusual hardy plants, rhododendrons, azaleas, native perennials, trees, shrubs, dogwoods, magnolias, conifers, Japanese maples, and variegated, shade, and deer-resistant plants! We will receive a 10% discount the day we visit.

$450 includes bus transportation, two hotels, three lunches, two dinners, entrance fees, docents, gratuities, but not your plant purchases! $100 deposit required.

Questions? E-mail Barbara Levine.