The first ever Georgia Master Gardener Road Trip was a rousing success! Although many Master Gardeners from Georgia travel with other groups and participate in tours throughout the world, we had not traveled together on an organized tour. UGA Horticulture Professors regularly escort tours to European gardens, but our idea was that there really are many wonderful gardens right here in North America that many of us haven’t seen, and wouldn’t it be wonderful to travel to see them together? Mark Czarnota, UGA Horticulturist and Weed Scientist, had interned at several gardens in the Delaware and Pennsylvania area known as the Brandywine Valley, and we had always talked about what a great trip that would be.
We were so fortunate to find a professional to organize the tour through one of our Master Gardeners in Macon. Tavia Henderson operates Southern Touch tours, and after we met to discuss our idea, she traveled to the BrandywineValley to scout out locations. In our initial conversations, we had thought of taking two coaches but we decided that in order to provide a quality tour, 50 people would be the maximum that we could take along.
On April 26th the coach departed from Macon at 5:30 a.m. and stopped along the way to pick up passengers in Griffin, Covington, and Augusta. We did find that stopping added quite a bit to our travel time so we made a note of that for future trips. We finally rolled into Wilmington, Delaware about 11:15 that evening. Whew!
The weather on the first day started out gray with drizzle and occasional downpours but that didn’t dampen our spirits. Our first stop was the HagleyMuseum, with one of the du Pont family’s early homes and the site of the original gunpowder mills on the BrandywineRiver. We had a lovely tour of the home at Eleutherian Mills restored by Louise Crowninshield, granddaughter of E.I. du Pont. What I found most interesting about the Hagley was the tour of the mills and how in the process of making gunpowder the danger of explosions was always present. It is striking how green and peaceful the mill area is now.
Our afternoon of the first day was spent at the WinterthurMuseum, and the weather was improving though it was still wet and a little chilly. They are several weeks behind us seasonally so we were treated to acres of Virginia Bluebells in bloom along with bleeding heart, ferns, dogwoods, redbuds and azaleas in the natural gardens around the mansion. The museum is housed in another du Pont family home and has one of the finest collections of American art and antiques in the world. The 95,000 square foot home houses about 85,000 objects from the 1640’s to 1860’s and there are about 175 rooms on display. One of the most interesting displays was an entire dining room from a Milledgeville, Georgia mansion.
That evening we had a lovely dinner in the Blue Room at the quaint Mendenhall Inn and the best mushroom chowder ever. Saturday the weather continued to improve and we spent the morning at Chanticleer Gardens in Wayne, Pennsylvania. Chanticleer is a lovely 33-acre estate with a wonderfully unstuffy garden filled with whimsy and grace, and I especially loved the ruins garden and the leopard-painted Adirondack chairs. Fun!
visited Tyler Arboretum on Saturday afternoon just in time for their plant sale. After we toured part of the 650-acre arboretum with its champion trees, plant collections and historic buildings, we loaded our plants on the bus and headed for the mushroom farm where we donned hair (and beard) nets for a fascinating tour of the mushroom houses. Can you imagine that they actually have trouble getting rid of all the mushroom compost they make after it’s used?
Sunday we visited the Brandywine River Museum in Chadd’s Ford, Pa with its collection of illustrations by Howard Pyle and Wyeth Family paintings and sculpture. After that we were off to the historic town of New Castle (everything is historic here!) where we had a wonderful lunch with the Marquis de La Fayette, including some of the best crab cakes ever. Old town New Castle is home to many historic sites, including the Read house, Amstel house and Dutch house, all of which we visited. The Read house, built in 1801 by the son of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, is the site of one of the oldest gardens in the region. Mark gave us educational and humorous observations every day via the coach microphone and that evening presented us with an educational slide presentation of our trip so far.
Monday was our final day, and the weather was perfect for a visit to the spectacular LongwoodGardens. Longwood was the weekend home to yet another du Pont, Pierre S., who purchased the old arboretum to save the trees from being cut for lumber. The often-photographed formal gardens were dazzling in the sunshine with
thousands of tulips and other spring bulbs still in full bloom but ready to be changed out to the next seasonal display for Mother’s Day. The four acres of conservatories were full of color including thousands of orchids, and undreds of flower displays and even turfgrass. Amazing is all I can say about LongwoodGardens.
Our final garden was that of Mrs. Eve Thyrum, a gardener after our own hearts. Her two-acre private garden was a slice of heaven to us with her collections of hosta, unique garden art and woody ornamentals. It was an absolute treat to visit with her in her garden.
Our last event was dinner aboard the Moshulu, a 1904 masted freighter docked at Penn’s Landing, Philadelphia.
Tuesday we headed back south with splendid memories of spectacular gardens of all kinds, fine art, and good food. This was really just a sampler. There were so many gardens that we didn’t get to, over 27 in that area alone, and we look forward to maybe traveling that way again. The gardens would not have been so pleasurable nor the food as good without such wonderful traveling companions as the Georgia Master Gardeners. Thank you to GMGA for being our partner in this trip, and we look forward to more trips and tours in the future.
