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Garden of the Year Runner-Up: Carefully designed garden rooms make Ann and …

Photo by Brandon Dill

Judges complimented the Zaners on doing so much with a small space on their Countrywood property.

Photo by Brandon Dill

Ann Zaner has more than 100 varieties of hydrangeas growing in the rambling, shady gardens of her home. She recommends varieties that max out at 3 feet.

Photo by Brandon Dill

This cottage, with a cozy front porch providing a view of Ann and Jim Zaner’s huge backyard garden, doubles as a storage shed.

Photo by Brandon Dill

The Zaners pose on one of the winding walkways that pass through the many hydrangeas in their backyard garden.

Ann and Jim Zaner, both master gardeners, have built a series of garden rooms throughout their Countrywood property, truly maximizing every bit of their space.

Their garden was selected as a runner-up in the ornamental garden category for The Commercial Appeal’s 2012 Garden of the Year contest.

“I liked the fact that it was a very small space, but they had done so much with it,” says contest judge Kim Rucker, greenhouse manager for the Dixon Gallery and Gardens. “You went around the corner, and you were in a totally different room. It was like a house the way they had it laid out.”

The Zaners work together in the garden with Jim concentrating on hardscaping and Ann handling design and art. The garden includes a raised deck area, a garden shared with neighbors, a pond with waterfall, a fountain and a brick fireplace, as well as a bathroom and shower. The property holds a hydrangea collection of about 100 different varieties, as well as extensive hosta varieties.

Ann selects her favorite hydrangeas based on length of bloom time and how attractive the blooms remain after being on the plant for a while. She used peat moss when building the hydrangea beds, and she amends the beds with lime and azalea fertilizer. “A perfect pH balance makes purple,” Ann says.

Some of her favorite hydrangeas are Incrediball, Forever Pink, Limelight and Nikko Blue.

“Forever Pink is stunning throughout the fall, and it only gets 3 feet tall,” Ann says. “You really have to appreciate those. If you are planting close to the house, you want hydrangeas that max out at 3 feet tall. You don’t want the 6-footers.”

Ann likes to paint dried hydrangea blooms and use them for holiday decorating. “Incrediball is beautiful, and it stays beautiful through the fall,” she says. “It would look like that through winter, other than it will lose its leaves. I tend to cut them off about November and make my Christmas wreathes. Incrediball is the perfect one to do that with. If you spray a little spray glue on it and put on some glitter, it’s even prettier.

Talented designer scoops top garden award

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Homes Calendar

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This weekend

Landscape tour: Pick up some great landscaping ideas while helping the Ottawa Hospital Womenâ€™s Breast Health Centre in a fundraising garden tour Saturday and Sunday. Check out both hardscaping and gardening designs at seven stops in Stonebridge, including an award-winning property. The tour runs from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. both days. Tickets are $20 each, available at: Welwyn Wong Landscape Design, 7 Claver St.; GreenScape, 2-54 Cleopatra Dr.; Design First Interiors, 270 Richmond Rd. or online for $25 using PayPal. For details, visit welwynwong.com.

All about kitchens: Find out about the latest products available for kitchens, bathrooms and closets as Laurysen Kitchens hosts a reno show Saturday with more than a dozen of its suppliers and industry partners. It runs from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Laurysenâ€™s showroom, 2415 Carp Rd., just north of the Queensway Admission is free, but youâ€™re asked to bring a non-perishable food item for the Ottawa Food Bank. For details, visit laurysenkitchens.com.

Next weekend

Studio tour: Check out a diverse collection of arts and crafts in the annual Artists in Their Environment Studio Tour. Using the autumn colours around Chelsea and Wakefield as a backdrop, 24 artists and craftspeople will open their doors from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sept. 22, 23, 28 and 29 to show off paintings, furniture, photography, pottery and more. Admission is free. Brochures are available to download at tourcw.com. For details, contact Janice Moorhead at janice@wakenet.ca or 819-459-2079.

Ladiesâ€™ day: Enjoy an afternoon of great food, decor, personal care and fashion as builders Tartan and Tamarack stage a free and informative day with their 15 model homes at Findlay Creek as a backdrop. Get tips, sit in on workshops, have a complimentary manicure and much more from noon to 4 p.m. Sept. 23 at 2894 Findlay Creek Dr. For details, call 613-822-0443 or visit findlaycreek.com.

Coming

Home show: Looking to beef up your living space? Then head to the Home Design Show. Find inspiration, products and advice from the likes of HGTVâ€™s Scott McGillivray, Andrew Downward and Karen Sealy, among others. The show runs Sept. 28 to 30 at the CE Centre. Tickets are $12 (children 17 and under admitted free). For details, visit homeanddesignshow.ca.

Art show: Check out a juried art show and sale featuring a variety of Ottawa-area artists in support of the Experimental Farm. For the Love of the Farm will take place Oct. 6 to 8 from noon to 6 p.m. at the farmâ€™s building 72, east off the Prince of Wales roundabout. Admission is free. For details, call 613-230-3276 or visit friendsofthefarm.ca.

Email information about homes-related events to homes@ottawacitizen.com.

Cash boost for Barrhead gardens

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Published 13 Sep 2012 12:26

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Grevilleas help make floral oasis

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The moonlight grevillea flowers all-year round.

THE beautiful sunshine has certainly transformed our gardens into flowering oases at present, including the broad range of many gardeners’ favourites, the grevilleas.

And don’t the birds just love them – you can almost hear them singing, “This way for the nectar!”

There is an enormous range of grevilleas both native and cultivars to tempt us, ranging from groundcovers to large trees, so there’s one to suit almost any garden.

The well known spring flowering silky oak (G.robusta) reaches 8-10m, displaying orange toothbrush flowers, while the 6-8m white oak has masses of white scented racemes in summer.

Add to that the delightful G. moonlight, a 3-4m shrub with large creamy spikes most of the year, and well-known G. Robyn Gordon grows a bushy 2m, producing its large cylindrical red flowers all year round.

Lower growers include the G. peaches and cream, growing 1.5m tall, with rich green foliage turning bronze in winter, and yellow cylindrical flowers aging to pink and orange appearing most of the year.

The delightful 75cm shrub G. pink lady blooms almost continually with many pink spider flowers.

The large range of groundcovers also thrive in window boxes, while some are proving to be excellent as standards with their spreading habit forming an eye-catching effect to create wonderful feature plants.

Groundcovers include the early forms bronze rambler and burgundy royal mantle, as well as the sunny effect of the formosa or Mt Brockman Grevillea with its large yellow flowers, and an absolutely stunning one that when grown as a shrub is known as golden lyre, or as a ground cover as Cooroora cascade.

The brief history of the last named is the well-known Hansa family of Fairhill Nursery had ground cover Grevillea formosa, which only lives about five years, so they bred it with the well-known G. honey gem to increase its longevity.

That breeding produced the shrub golden lyre, and further breeding resulted in the ground cover Cooroora cascade.

Sounds simple doesn’t it, but just think of the many years that took! But what treasures we now have.

Do yourselves a favour – add some grevilleas to your garden.

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Preparing for Your Fall Garden

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Avis Licht is a landscape gardener, educator, and author of the wonderful book, The Spring Garden Made Easy. Her passion is to create beautiful gardens that incorporate edibles that can be harvested year round. With fall approaching, I asked Avis to share some of her pearls of wisdom for the fall garden.

Avis: As fall approaches we get conflicting messages from the weather. One says, “It’s still summer and hot and the garden is growing like mad.” The other is, “Nights are cool, the days keep getting shorter, and winter must be getting close.” We’re pulled in both directions: ACTION! and Hybernation zzzzzzzzzzzzz. Which one is right? Well, both are true and it’s time to get your garden ready for colder weather and put it to sleep. Both the garden and the gardener are restored by the rest imposed on us by winter.

What does it mean to put your garden to rest? For your perennial flowers and vegetables, it means to cut them to the ground, remove any diseased foliage, and mulch them. Their roots will continue to grow and store energy for the next season. For your fruit trees, it means picking up fallen fruit so that unwanted critters won’t establish themselves in the trees. Rake and clean up underneath the trees and mulch with compost.

For your vegetable garden, it means when a crop is finished you will either replant the area with cool weather crops or plant it with a cover crop that protects the soil surface and improves the soil fertility. Cover crops include nitrogen fixers like fava beans, bell beans, and vetch. These plants actually take nitrogen out of the air and put it into the soil. With the right plants, we can restore vitality and fertility into the soil.

Those of us in temperate climates have the opportunity to grow cool weather crops that will grow over winter. These include broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, chard, kale, spinach, lettuce, beets, carrots, peas, and garlic. These plants not only can withstand some frost, they even taste better with the cold weather!

To learn more about your specific climate and growing zone, talk to neighbors who garden, go to your local nursery to see what plants they have. The internet has lots of information. Sifting out what you need to know can seem daunting, but it’s worth the effort. In my blog, Edible Landscaping Made Easy, I write about all aspects of landscaping, and you can find lots of information on plants, soil, growing zones, and more.

During the long winter evenings you can start daydreaming about your ideal garden, and come spring, be ready to dig in!

Gardeners swap top tips

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Easton Church Rooms buzzed with enthusiastic gardeners discussing their challenges with the weather this summer and how they achieved amazing results in the varying categories for the awards ceremony.

In the presence of the two experienced judges, Margo Hall and Margaret Robinson, the prizes were presented by John from Brownes Garden Centre.

We are grateful to Rocky Mountain Nursery at Maesbury, and to Brownes Garden Centre at Coxley for generously donating the prizes.

The prize giving was interspersed with poetry as varied as The Rain Show by William Blake and Will To Live by Mary Triplett.

Next year we will provide a quiz as suggested by the gardeners.

It was a joy to realise that from Wells In Bloom inviting schools to plant wheelbarrows, two local young people, Sophie Peglar and Georgina Burns have found a lifelong joy of gardening.

Apologies were received from Councillor Sandra Ford, the chairman of St Cuthbert Out Parish Council who unfortunately could not make it. It was her vision inspired the formation of this competition three years ago.

The judging for 2013 will be in mid May with the overall theme Spring Gardens.

There will be some new categories including plants to encourage wildlife.

Since the start of the awards the Overall Cup has been awarded to gardens in East Horrington, Haydon and Coxley.

We look forward to sharing spring beauty with different gardens in the North and South Ward next year, as well as revisiting familiar gardens in a different season.

Councillor Jane Hill

St Cuthbert in Bloom Organiser

Gardening tips, advice and guides from Eden Project

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Question two: We have a lemon verbena which has been growing up a south
facing wall for about 15 years but the for the last two years the foliage is
becoming less and less and this year the leaves have appeared only at the
bottom. It is about 3m high and well supported and we have cuttings from it
but rarely seem to be able to keep these going for more than two years.
Please help – this was planted by a French window and every time you brushed
past it the smell was beautiful.

Lemon verbena – Aloysia triphylla – is a gorgeous aromatic
shrub and you have had 15 years of sheer enjoyment from it. Even on a south
facing wall if not protected over the recent harsh winter months then I’m
afraid what you have described sounds like frost damage or damage due to a
mixture of wet/cold winters.

We suggest that you prune the main stems to strong buds – about 30cm from
ground level – mid spring once the danger of frost has passed. Then, from
early summer, pinch out shoot tips for leafy, bushy growth. It is a bit late
now to prune back to 30 cm above ground so alternatively we suggest that you
prune back to where the growth is, take softwood cuttings in the summer and
then in the autumn mulch, protect over winter with fleece. Next mid spring
(2013) give it a prune back using the above technique.

Question three: My garlic is now flowering. Is it ready to harvest? It
seems too early but it has rust.

Garlic – Allium sativum – takes between 16 and 36 weeks to mature. Sounds like
you planted them in the autumn? If so, then flowering now sounds about
right. You need to snip off the flower spikes otherwise the plants put their
energy into the flower and seed rather than the cloves. The bulbs are ready
to harvest once the leaves fade (turn yellow) in mid-summer. Dry them
thoroughly, and store them carefully (they bruise) by hanging them in
bunches. The rust is either due to the plants being planted to closely
together and/or if planted in a shady spot.

Question four: I have a mint plants in the kitchen, where I strip
leaves, the shoots often grow back, long, straggly and yellow with tiny
leaves. What’s the best way to prune them to get less shoots but better,
greener leaves?

The key to having good mint plants is having good light conditions.
Unfortunately, mint plants don’t fare well indoors as light is reduced when
it passes through your kitchen window. It is therefore better to grow mint
outside in a sunny position and keep well watered. Grow in a rich, moist
soil in sun or part shade in a container and regularly divide the plants.
When your plants are young it is worthwhile pinching out their tips above
the nodes (two side buds) so that you create a more bushy plant. Then if you
continue to harvest the mint plants regularly you will maintain bushiness.
If grown in a container outside then it is worthwhile over time adding
nutrients by top dressing with peat free compost or in some cases dividing
the plant and repotting. Jekka Herbs supplies some really interesting mint
herb cultivars. We have had good success with Mentha spicata var. crispa
‘Moroccan’

Question five: Re: the slug problem – why don’t you encourage more
hedgehogs? I never have a slug problem in my garden as I have a resident
hedgehog. Eden Project is very well respected and could encourage everyone
to stop using environmentally non-friendly slug pellets and to help and
respect the hedgehog population. A small meal of dog food encourages them to
a garden.

We love hedgehogs and I completely agree with your solution of encouraging
more hedgehogs into our gardens to reduce plants being damaged by slugs.
Indeed, hedgehogs amongst other beneficial creatures that eat plant pests
such as ladybirds and lacewings are a gardener’s best friend. In particular,
as you quite rightly state, hedgehogs are fantastic at eating slugs, snails
and other pests that damage plants. Having a hedgehog yourself, you would
know that you can encourage them into your garden by having some entrances
and exits available to them – and by leaving piles of leaves and twigs
around for them to nest in, or by making purpose built shelters. Food should
be put out at sunset, so that flies cannot lay eggs in it. If the food is
not eaten by morning, it should be collected. A good hedgehog diet would
include tinned pet food, crunchy peanut butter, raw or cooked meat
leftovers, muesli and a small amount of vegetables. They should not be fed
on bread and milk if they are captive and cannot find other foods as this
gives them diarrhoea.

Unfortunately, many people’s first port of call to kill slugs is the use of
toxic slug pellets that contain harmful chemicals and this is why we suggest
the use of the non-toxic Ferramol Max slug pellets which contains Ferric
Phosphate only and not the additive EDTA in other Ferric Phosphate products
(thought also to be detrimental to the environment). In addition, we also
suggest using Nemaslug a bio-control that kills slugs. We feel that
suggesting a few options for the public gives them the freedom to decide
what route they want to take. These options include encouraging beneficial
predators into your garden such as hedgehogs, the use of less toxic baits
and bio controls. All of these options are given in the hope that the public
are well informed so that they can make their own choice and therefore
hopefully reduce the use of toxic slug pellets and thus reduce their impact
on the environment. Once again, thank you for your comment about hedgehogs.

Ask
the Eden experts your gardening questions here

Eartha Steward: Garden-prepping tips for fall

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Here are some tips for getting your garden ready this fall for a fabulous growing season in 2013:

Add compost! The best thing you can do for your garden is to add compost. Compost is a nutrient-rich amendment that can fix a lot of problems in the garden. If you’ve noticed issues with water retention and drying out — add compost. Compost will also help gardens overcome the trials of mountain gardening (cold nights, drought, wind …) by fostering stronger and healthier plants.

You can grow your own compost in a backyard bin or worm bin or you can purchase locally made compost. Conveniently, there is a fall compost special at the High Country Compost facility right now. You can buy finished compost by the bag or truck load (cubic yard). There are two types of finished compost — compost made from biosolids and compost made from food waste from zero-waste events and the schools. To purchase compost, contact the Summit County Resource Allocation Park at (970) 468-9263 x 0.

Chop and drop! Another way to add nutrients back into your soil is to let nature do it. Simply cut the remaining plants in your vegetable garden at the surface, shred and use as a mulch. You can leave the roots of the plant in the soil to later decompose and aerate.

Grow a cover crop! Cover crops are green manures that can either fix nitrogen levels in your soil and/or return depleted nutrients. In our mountain environment, they aren’t easy to grow. For greenhouses, hoophouses or cold frames that can keep snow off plants and provide shelter from winter elements, cover crops can be effective. You need to seed cover crops now to allow them to establish before the frost. As they grow, the crops continue to enrich the soil. In the spring, you harvest the crop before it reaches maturity and then chop it down and gently till it back into the soil. Cover crops help aerate the soil, break up compaction and replenish organic matter.

Some example crops that may do well in the High Country because of their endurance to temperatures between -15 and -30 degrees are hairy vetch (considered the hardiest of the legumes), annual ryegrass and winter rye (best grass for cold winter climates). Even if your cover crop doesn’t survive all winter, it will still add a valuable supplement to the soil when it thaws out in the spring.

Try lasagna gardening! Lasagna beds, also known as sheet composting or mulching, is one of my favorite ways to build soil and new gardens. If you’ve considered building a raised vegetable garden, now is as good of time as any. After constructing your bed, layer it like a compost bin with a couple of inches of nitrogen materials (green plant debris and some food waste) followed by a couple of inches of carbon materials (brown ingredients like seed-free straw, leaves or newspaper). Leave at least 4-6 inches of space from the top of the bed. Come spring, add a mix of topsoil and compost for new plants. Beneath the new soil, your lasagna bed layers will slowly breakdown to form compost over the next two years.

Ask Eartha Steward is written by the staff at the High Country Conservation Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to waste reduction and resource conservation. Submit questions to Eartha at eartha@highcountryconservation.org.

Fall highlights at Brandywine Valley gardens, museums, and historic sites

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Ask me a question.

Wilmington, DE, September 13, 2012 (Brandywine Museums and Gardens Alliance) – Foliage, art exhibits, family activities, and unique events create an awesome autumn in the Brandywine Valley. Highlights are below; visit BMGA member institutions’ websites for more details.

The Brandywine River Museum presents Picturing Poe: Illustrations for Edgar Allan Poe’s Stories and Poems, September 8–November 15.

This exhibition presents works from more than two dozen artists who have interpreted Poe’s stories and poems, including Poe’s earliest illustrator, F.O.C. Darley, who was chosen for the task by the author himself. After Poe’s 1849 death, an international cast including Édouard Manet, Gustave Doré, Paul Gauguin, James Ensor, Aubrey Beardsley, and others were inspired by Poe’s macabre writings. Original paintings, drawings, prints, and first-edition books are on display. Associated events include a wine-tasting, a performance by Hedgerow Theatre, and more; complete list here.

A new program for the Museum, Music on the Brandywine, has its inaugural concert September 20, 7:30 p.m. The evening features soprano Kathryn Guthrie-Demos and pianist Andrew Hauze from Astral Artists, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to discover exceptionally talented emerging classically trained performers. Light refreshments provided; cash bar. Galleries open at 7 p.m. Tickets $15, members and students; $25, non-members. Click here to purchase tickets.

The Festival of Goblins creeps into the Delaware Art Museum on Saturday, October 27, 4:30–7 p.m. Kids and their families will enjoy a trick-or-treat scavenger hunt, making boo-tiful art, spooky stories performed by interactive storyteller and illustrator Jeff Hopkins, dancing to thrilling and chilling music, a costume parade, and much more! Children are invited to come in their most creative costume. Complimentary snacks and drinks included; additional food available for purchase. Ticket prices and additional information here.

The Museum is celebrating 100 years of supporting the visual arts in its community. To commemorate past annual exhibitions of painting and crafts, Centennial Juried Exhibition will be on view October 20, 2012–January 13, 2013, featuring drawings, paintings, sculpture, photography, video, and installation art from artists living in Delaware or within 100 miles of the Museum.

Guest-juried by John B. Ravenal, the Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the show celebrates the tradition of juried exhibitions and identifies artistic trends that will characterize the region’s future.

Delaware Yesterday, DelawareToday, 1962-2012 celebrates the 50th anniversary of DelawareToday magazine with an exhibit from the Delaware Historical Society at the Delaware History Museum, open through March 30, 2013. Examine the past 50 years through Delaware Today’s coverage and the Delaware Historical Society’s collections. Whether your family has been here 200 years or you moved here recently, you’re sure to learn something that will help you understand how Delaware’s yesterdays shape the Delaware we know today.

On Thursday, September 27, mix a little history with the opportunity to visit Wilmington’s newest taproom, Ernest Scott, at Think Drink: Food Beer Pairing. The evening, which starts at 6 p.m., includes a talk about the history of beer-making, a short walking tour along Market Street, five beer samples and five food samples. Must be 21. Reservations required; tickets $20. Register here or call 302-295-2382.

Join the DHS for a fascinating Wilmington Brandywine Cemetery Tour, 701 Delaware Avenue in Wilmington, to learn about Civil War soldiers and notable civilians buried here. Saturday, October 13 and Saturday, October 27, 10 a.m.–12 p.m. Reservations required; call 302-295-3284 or emailamaccari@dehistory.org. $5.00/member, $10/non-member.

The Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts—where admission is always free!—has a wide variety of exhibits and events this fall. Don’t miss“The Real Woman of Philadelphia Cream Cheese Contest” through November 1. The mockumentary follows Philadelphia artist Jenny Drumgoole’s quest to meet Southern culinary star Paula Deen by participating in Kraft Foods’ 2010 online cooking contest and female-oriented marketing campaign, Real Women of Philadelphia. Drumgoole submitted videos about her unique dishes, including “Cognitive Developmental Special Cheese Macaroni,” and she randomly contacted other contestants to send footage of themselves flipping their hair while brandishing packages of cream cheese to hilarious effect. The resulting film is hilarious, but also has a serious side as it questions our cultural obsession with celebrity.

Go on a Rainforest Adventure at the Delaware Museum of Natural History, October 6, 2012–January 6, 2013. This multisensory experience with more than 40 interactive components introduces visitors to tropical rainforests, their unique ecology, and their challenges. Discover plant and animal life, become a scientist, climb through the canopy, and explore a gorilla nest.

Slither into the ooey, gooey world of bats, bugs, and other creepy crawlies at the Halloween event, Bug-a-Boo Goo, Saturday, October 20, 2012. Specimen displays, games, crafts, activities, a pumpkin judging contest, and live animals from the Philadelphia Zoo highlight this hands-on event for the whole family.

Rev it up at the Hagley Car Show on the grounds of Hagley Museum and Library, Sunday, September 16, 10 a.m.–4 p.m. Check out more than 500 antique and restored cars that date from the early 1900s-1980s. The show features vehicle parades, motoring music, video and go-kart racing, and a festival food court. Click here to purchase tickets.

Every Saturday in October from 11 a.m.–4 p.m., Brandywine Hayrides take visitors through the beautiful fall foliage in the Powder Yard. See a gunpowder explosion, the roll mill in action, and working 19th-century machines. Live music, local cider, and seasonal craft-making. Included with admission.

The Museum has many other events this autumn, including a top-notchCraft Fair, the Golden Pheasants Seagram’s Tasting, and All-American Daywith a 19th-century baseball game. Click here for details.

Get to Longwood Gardens to catch a last glimpse Light: Installations by Bruce Munro, closing September 29. Explore Munro’s installations set throughout the Conservatory and Gardens: a field of light reminiscent of flowers, a meadow of glowing towers, a shower of cascading raindrops fashioned from delicate bulbs.

From October 27–November 18, the Chrysanthemum Festival will wow visitors with more than 20,000 plants grown in extraordinary ways, preserving an ancient art form while innovating technique and display. See tall cloud forms, 13-foot arches, ball standards, shields, and the largest Thousand Bloom Mum in North America with over 1,000 white flowers on one stem!

Longwood’s Garden Railway opens October 1, a whimsical display set into motion with G-scale model trains. The railway will delight all ages with custom trains chugging along 450 feet of charmingly landscaped track in and out of tunnels, past water features, and over bridges—including one that’s 17 feet long and 12 feet high. The littlest conductors will enjoy a special section installed at their eye level.

The gates of Mt. Cuba Center are opening wide! For four days this fall, visitors may wander the grounds of the region’s finest wildflower gardens on their own. No reservations are necessary for Visitor Days, September 28 and 29, October 26 and 27, 10 a.m.–4 p.m. Enjoy Discovery Stations; visit the Piedmont Rock Outcrop on a guided excursion at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.; and help evaluate Heucheras and Coreopsis in our Trial Garden.

At the Main House, view “The Spirit of Art at Mt. Cuba Center,” an exhibition of paintings featuring scenic views of Mt. Cuba Center. Tickets are $3 for adults, $2 for children 6-16, and free for children under 6 years old. Details available here or at 302-239-4244. Not wheelchair or stroller accessible.

Tours are available at Nemours Mansion and Gardens in September and October. The mansion, built by Alfred I. duPont for his second wife, Alicia, was designed in the late-18th-century style she adored, while incorporating the latest technology and many of Alfred’s own inventions. The surrounding 222-acre gardens are the finest example of formal French gardens in North America.

Marvels of symmetry, they closely follow the mode of the Petit Trianon at Versailles. Reservations are highly recommended for individuals and required for groups. Tours last two and a half to three hours. Admission $15.00. For hours and reservations, call 302-651-6912 or toll-free, 1-800-651-6912, or reserve online here.

Go on an entertaining search for things that go bump in the night atRockwood Park and Museum on Ghost Tours I, every Saturday in October, 7-8:30 p.m. Tour the mansion, seeking your own paranormal experience, while guides relate tales documented by those who have lived and worked at Rockwood. Must be age 12 or older.

Ghost Tours II, for adults only, are held every Saturday in October from 9 p.m.-midnight. Session include instruction and hands-on use of paranormal investigative equipment as participants explore the mansion.
Register for all Ghost Tours I or II online here. Participants must be in good health and able to go up and down steps comfortably.

Interior design, history, and Winterthur come together at the 6th Annual Chic It Up! Design Conference, “It’s a Party!” at Winterthur Museum, Garden Library on Saturday, September 15. Get inspired by presentations on great parties of the 20th century, Southern style entertaining, the high life on ocean liners, and more. Call 800-448-3883 to register.

Bring the family for some “wheel” fun at Truck Tractor Day, Saturday, October 6, 10 a.m.–4 p.m. Celebrate the history of farming at Winterthurand the completion of the new state-of-the-art Brown Horticulture Learning Center, where guests and Garden experts can explore horticultural topics in depth. Explore tractors, farm vehicles, and fire trucks, do arts and crafts, take a hayride, and milk a mechanical cow! Food and drink available for purchase.
Get a glimpse into the world of Jane Austen, as seen through the eyes of Sandy Lerner, Austen expert and author of Second Impressions, the widely anticipated sequel to Pride and Prejudice. Information about book-signings and the Jane Austen Gift Show here.
Reaching and Teaching Through Material Culture: A Winterthur Graduate Program 60th Anniversary Symposium September 28–29, 2012, is a symposium on material culture and art conservation, featuring experts from around the country. Includes tours of A Lasting Legacy, which highlights the accomplishments of six decades of graduate programming by Winterthur and the University of Delaware. Call 800-448-3883 to register.

For more information, visit our website, and join us on on Facebook and Twitter. For high-resolution images, visit brandywinetreasures.picturepush.com.

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The above information provided by the Brandywine Museums and Gardens Alliance and is deemed reliable. Please confirm all information before traveling.

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