Virused-Out Trips

April 14th, 2020

   The two garden trips that Lowee’s Group Tours and I had planned for April and May are officially casualties of the coronavirus pandemic… for now.

We’ll have to wait until next year to sniff the lilacs at Rochester’s annual Lilac Festival.

   The April 30 day trip we were going to do to two Lancaster County home gardens and to two stellar Lancaster County plant places is off but now rescheduled for Fri., June 19. We’re hoping the coast will be clear by then and things back to at least semi-normal.

   The Lancaster trip starts with a visit to the 1-acre, no-lawn “Gardens of Oz” of Dr. Dennis Denenberg near Manheim. The property has a variety of theme gardens, including a Wizard of Oz garden with a yellow brick road and Toto doghouse.

   Dennis’s house is a veritable Wizard of Oz museum, too. We’ll tour both the gardens and house.

   Stop 2 is the colorful beds on the grounds of Vivian and Bob Abel’s Pheasant Run Farm Bed and Breakfast in the serene Lancaster County countryside.

   Vivian is an active garden clubber and has flowers and gardens both around the B&B and sprinkled throughout the 48-acre property – 26 acres of which is farmed.

   We’ll then have lunch at the Shady Maple Smorgasbord and spend the afternoon shopping at two of my favorite bargain-priced Lancaster County plant haunts – Black Creek Greenhouses (annuals/perennials) and Conestoga Nursery (trees/shrubs). I’ll be happy to help with your plant-purchasing questions.

   The cost is $107, including the Shady Maple eating extravaganza and donations for the home gardens. More information and booking is available by calling Lowee’s Group Tours at 717-657-9658 or toll-free 1-888-345-6933 or by emailing CKelly@Lowees.com.

   The second postponed trip was the May 2-9 trip we were planning to the gardens of Niagara and Toronto, plus Rochester’s annual Lilac Festival.

   We’re going to do that one next year… from Sat., May 8, through Sat., May 15, 2021.

   Rochester canceled this year’s Lilac Festival, and we really wanted that event to be part of this trip, which is why we’re putting the whole thing off until next year instead of trying to head to Niagara and Toronto later in 2020.

   This eight-day coach tour highlights the blooms of Niagara Falls (Niagara Botanical Garden, the Floral Clock, Queen Victoria Park, and Canada’s best tea garden as well as the famous falls) and Toronto (Casa Loma, Toronto Music Garden, Toronto Botanical Garden, Edwards Garden, and the Spadina Museum and Gardens, nicknamed “Toronto’s Downton Abbey”).

   In between, we’ll tour one of Canada’s top-rated gardens – the Royal Botanic Gardens in Hamilton – and on the way home, enjoy a day of fragrance and color at Rochester’s 2021 Lilac Festival.

   Also included are stops at a 13-acre New York home garden called Smug Creek Gardens, the mansion and gardens at the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, and Sunbury’s Keithan’s Bluebird Gardens.

   The cost is $1,699 per person double, including hotel (seven nights), 14 meals, admissions and transportation. Note: A passport is needed for this trip.

   More information and booking is available by calling Lowee’s Group Tours at 717-657-9658 or toll-free 1-888-345-6933 or by emailing CKelly@Lowees.com

   We’re still looking at doing the rest of our 2021 trips, including summer day trips to the new Delaware Botanic Gardens, gardens of New York’s Hudson River, and Philadelphia’s Morris Arboretum and Shofuso Japanese House and Gardens as well as a September trip to gardens of the Midwest (St. Louis, Nashville, and Louisville) and a 17-day gardener’s vacation to Australia and New Zealand from Oct. 25-Nov. 10.

   The dates, prices, and more details are listed on my George’s Talks and Trips page.