Celebrating 76 Years of Preserving Virginia’s Heritage
Welcome to Historic Garden Week in Virginia’s 76th anniversary season. This spring, visitors will step through the gates of more than 250 of Virginia’s most beautiful gardens, homes and historic landmarks during “America’s Largest Open House,” April 18-25, 2009. Three dozen Historic Garden Week tours present a rich mosaic of some of the country’s finest properties at the peak of Virginia’s springtime color. Sponsored by The Garden Club of Virginia, local events are scheduled from the Atlantic Ocean to the Allegheny Mountains and will span the centuries from the early 17th through the early 21st.
For those interested in horticulture, there will be formal gardens, walled gardens, cottage gardens, cutting gardens, annual and perennial gardens, herb gardens, water gardens, and even secret gardens. Visitors interested in architecture and interior decorating will see beautifully renovated historic properties as well as stunning contemporary residences, exceptional artwork, and some of the country’s best collections of glass, china, and American, European and Asian antiques. Many houses have interesting family histories intertwined with the Revolutionary War, the Civil War and the Victorian era.
Historic Garden Week is the oldest and largest statewide house and garden tour event in the nation. Sponsored by The Garden Club of Virginia, tours benefit the restoration of important historic grounds and gardens throughout the state. Each event offers an engaging variety of five to six local houses and gardens, most open to the public for the first time for Garden Week.
A number of historic James River plantations will have special openings during Garden Week. Tuckahoe Plantation, a boyhood home of Thomas Jefferson with exquisite gardens, will be open. The National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places in partnership with the James River Plantations of Charles City County, Virginia, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources and the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers, invite you to explore the James River Plantations. Information about other plantations will be outlined in the Historic Garden Week in Virginia guidebook.
Information about overnight accommodations can be obtained by calling the Virginia Tourism Corporation 1-800-VISITVA for a free “Virginia is for Lovers” travel guide and state highway map. The Virginia Tourism Corporation’s web site is www.virginia.org.
Beginning in January, complete tour information is available by accessing the name of the tour of interest on the Schedule page of this site. Also check the Guidebooks/Tickets page and Tour Highlights page for details.
Beginning April 12, detailed information about the tours can be accessed on the Richmond Times-Dispatch site featuring the Sunday supplement, “Springtime in Virginia.” General information about gardening activities is available on the Charlottesville Garden Club’s web page Gardening in Virginia.
Garden Week’s e-mail address is gdnweek@verizon.net. The telephone number is (804) 644-7776, and the fax number is (804) 644-7778. For information about advertising in the Historic Garden Week guidebook, please contact gardenwk@verizon.net.
For information about the programs, objectives and historic restoration projects of The Garden Club of Virginia, please access www.gcvirginia.org.
Garden Week tours are held rain or shine and do not “sell out” in advance. Tickets may be purchased at any of the properties open on the day of the tour and online. (See Guidebook/Tickets section.) Check weather conditions for the Morven estate gardens (Albemarle/Charlottesville), as this is the only property that may close in the event of rain.
Our events are house and garden tours. Please read the property descriptions carefully in the guidebook (also attached by tour name to the Schedule page in January). If more emphasis is given to the house than the garden, it is likely that the house is the greater attraction. However, there are many lovely gardens open on tours throughout the state.
Future Garden Week dates are April 17-25, 2010, and April 16-24, 2011.
The Garden Club of Virginia exists to
Celebrate the beauty of the land,
Conserve the gifts of nature, and
Challenge future generations to build on this heritage.
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