Three garden trips for fall

August 24th, 2010

   Ever been to Old Westbury Gardens and Planting Fields Arboretum on Long Island, New York?

   Interested in seeing Longwood Gardens behind the scenes?

   How about a visit to Colonial Williamsburg’s Christmas-time Grand Illumination with a gardening twist?

Old Westbury's lily pond.

   Those are the three destinations where I’ll be leading garden-themed trips this fall through Lowee’s Group Tours of Harrisburg.

   The Long Island trip is an overnighter on Sept. 24-25 that’ll feature a pair of superb estate gardens that few Harrisburgers have seen.

   Old Westbury is the turn-of-the-20^th-century home of the Phipps family and has 200 acres of gardens, woods and lawn. The formal gardens are meticulous (not to mention the ornate ironworks), but also superb are the water features, the rose garden and especially the place’s walled-in garden.

   Planting Fields is even bigger — more than 400 acres, about half of which is devoted to woodland trails. But the cultivated areas include a landscaped swimming pool, a 5-acre garden of species arranged in order of their names, a dahlia garden, a dwarf conifer collection and lots of heaths and heathers that are actually living (unlike in our heat and clay).

   This trip also includes stops at artist Robert Dash’s unique Madoo Conservancy gardens and Landcraft Environments — an elaborate home garden you might’ve seen on Martha Stewart’s shows.

   The Longwood trip is an Oct. 15 day trip that’ll take us behind the scenes into Longwood’s production greenhouses, where we’ll see their trial plants, how they store bulbs and other little secrets into how these world-class gardeners perform their magic.

   We’ll also have a private cooking demo by Longwood chef Joe Labombarda, a gourmet lunch, a walking tour with Longwood senior gardeners and time to explore on your own.

   “A Green Williamsburg Christmas” is a 5-day holiday vacation timed to see Colonial Williamsburg lit up and decorated in Christmas splendor.

   But we’ll also take a guided walking tour focusing on the plant decorations, go to a decoration workshop, get the inside scoop from and a personalized tour with Colonial Williamsburg garden historians and hear a Christmas concert on the glass harmonica — a rare and beautiful instrument invented by — who else — Benjamin Franklin.

   This trip includes a variety of Colonial-tavern meals and a stop at Richmond’s way underrated Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden on the way home (one of my top 10 best public gardens of all time).

   The Long Island trip is $339 per person, the Longwood trip is $149, and the Williamsburg trip is $599.

   As always, I’ll be talking gardening and answering all your gardening questions on the bus. My wife, Sue, will be your “mom” on each trip.

   To sign up, call Lowee’s at 657-9658, email ckelly@lowees.com or visit Lowee’s web site at www.lowees.com.