The 2015 Garden Trips Are Ready

November 18th, 2014

OK, garden oglers. My lineup of great gardens to see in 2015 is ready, and the stops range from camellias and topiaries in South Carolina to elaborate lakeside villa landscapes in northern Italy to five superb gardens in our own backyards.

Oglers on one of our past trips to Old Westbury in New York.

Once again, I’m working with Lowee’s Group Tours of Harrisburg for a total of 13 trips – one overseas, two regional multi-day “mini vacations,” and the rest day trips.

The whole schedule is posted on my George’s Talks and Trips page if you just want to zip there now.

All of the trips are open to the public, and you don’t have to know botanical names or even the difference between a coneflower and a conehead to come along and enjoy the beauty.

We’ve timed each visit for prime viewing and picked a variety of venues and garden types so there’s something for all.

Each trip includes transportation, tolls, admissions and a lot of the meals. I give away prizes on the bus, answer gardening questions, and give you insights and background on what we’re going to see. Many of the stops include guided on-site tours, while others let you explore on your own.

Stauffers of Kissel Hill Home and Garden stores are again sponsoring all but the Italy trip. For you, that means a chance to win one of four $25 Stauffers gift cards per trip.

As an extra bonus, my lovely wife, Sue, is your trip host (more like mom) to make sure everyone’s happy, healthy and on board when the bus leaves.

Your job is to have a wonderful day with fellow gardeners, eat some good food, and maybe take a lot of pictures and plant notes.

These are all custom-planned trips put together by Lowee’s and I, except for the Italy trip, which is part of the Royal Horticultural Society’s worldwide Garden Holidays program operated by Collette Vacations.

Pickups are on both the East and West Shores. Call Lowee’s at 717-657-9658 or 1-888-345-6933 or email CKelly@Lowees.com to book any of them or get more details.

I’m particularly excited about three of next year’s trips.

One, of course, is the “biggie” to Italy, a 10-day vacation next May 16-25 to the islands of northern Italy, where we’ll see the world’s first botanical garden, nine other formal and villa gardens, breathtaking scenery and some great food and wine. We’re flying into Venice and out of Milan.

The second is a 6-night, 7-day gardener’s spring vacation to see Charleston, S.C.’s annual garden tour (one of the nation’s best), plus Magnolia Plantation, Middleton Place, Brookgreen Gardens, America’s only remaining tea plantation, Richmond’s Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, and a private garden on my bucket list, Pearl Fryar’s incredible 2-acre topiary landscape in Bishopville, S.C.

We’re also doing a day trip to Savannah, Ga. It runs next March 16 to 22.

The third trip – one I’m sure is going to sell out quickly – is a July 24 day trip to see some of the best local gardens I’ve seen and written about.

We’ll see a garden railway, pollinator gardens, a 6-acre home arboretum with 1,700 trees and shrubs, a pumpkin patch that grows some of America’s biggest pumpkins, a huge backyard labyrinth, and a suburban landscape that won a 2014 gardening award from the Pa. Horticultural Society.

Lunch is at Halifax’s Armstrong Valley Winery, where we’ll also take a wine-making tour and do some “product evaluation.” We’re calling the day “Home-Grown Great Gardens… and a Bit of Wine.”

The series gets under way at the end of February with our usual day-trip offerings to the Philadelphia Flower Show, which next year features a movie theme.

We’re going opening day, Feb. 28, and also on March 2, 4, 5 and 6. We get there around noon (avoiding the early lines), drop you off at the front door, and stay until 7 p.m. so you can enjoy the 40-some display gardens and 300-vendor marketplace in thinning crowds.

On Sat., April 18, we’re going back to the Alexandria Home and Garden Tour, which we’ve done twice before. But people like this one so much, we get a lot of repeat requests, which is fine since the gardens change from year to year.

Next year, we’re going to the tour from morning to early afternoon, then spending the balance of the afternoon at Surreybrooke, a classy garden center with display gardens near Frederick, Md.

On Fri., June 26, we’re going back to author Stephanie Cohen’s home garden near Philadelphia. We took two busloads there last year and got additional requests, so Stephanie, here we come again. This time we’re pairing her place with an afternoon tour of New Jersey’s Grounds for Sculpture, a 42-acre sculpture garden that features gardens and 270 outdoor sculptures in a park-like setting.

On Fri., Aug. 28, it’s off to New York, where we’ll spend the morning touring Wave Hill, a beautifully designed public garden overlooking the Hudson River, and then the afternoon at the New York Botanical Garden, a world-class 250 acres with theme gardens, an elaborate children’s garden and a conservatory rivaling Longwood’s.

Our second multi-day regional trip takes us to two of Pennsylvania’s newest gardens from Oct. 15 through Oct. 17.

The first is the new 1-acre Childhood’s Gate children’s garden that just opened last summer at Penn State’s H.O. Smith Botanic Gardens. The second is the even newer Pittsburgh Botanical Garden, the first 60 acres of which opened in fall 2014 in former polluted mine land west of Pittsburgh.

We’ll also tour Pittsburgh’s century-old Phipps Conservatory and butterfly house in the evening, visit the city’s National Aviary, take a three-rivers cruise on the Gateway Clipper, shop at one of Pittsburgh’s biggest and best garden centers, then cap it all off with a tour of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater house and grounds on the way home.

The year’s final trip will be on Fri., Dec. 4, 2015, when we spend Christmas with the du Ponts. This day includes a visit to the original du Pont home in America (now the Hagley Museum and grounds), then a tour of Henry Francis du Pont’s Winterthur grounds and house (decorated for Christmas) and then a tour of Pierre du Pont’s Longwood Gardens, where we’ll stay until after dark to enjoy Longwood’s outdoor lights and fountain shows set to holiday music.

See more details on the whole lineup on my George’s Talks and Trips page. That page also has links to each of the full trip itineraries on Lowee’s website.

To book a trip, call Lowee’s Group Tours at 717-657-9658 or 1-888-345-6933 or email CKelly@Lowees.com.

Hope to see you on the bus… or plane.