A Bouquet of Gardens
by Hilda M. Morrill
 For Valentine’s Day this year, instead of a bouquet of flowers, why not give a bouquet of gardens? Specifically, how about a gift of a visit this coming June to ten of the most beautiful gardens in the Greater Boston Area?
You can give an even more memorable gift to your loved one: a morning spent in one of those gardens, accompanied by an expert on that garden, with just two dozen other visitors.
The Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts, the host of “Mass Gardens on Tour 2008,” will send to you, or your Valentine directly, a detailed description of the Tour along with ticket confirmation.
If you choose one of the specialty tours, the package will also include information on the garden expert who will lead the tour as well as a peek at the garden that is to be visited. This year’s tour will be held over four days, June 6-9.
The specialty tours, called the "Learning Tours," are held the morning of tour days. There will be a total of 21 Learning Tours over the four days. Each tour, limited to 25 visitors, focuses on one garden and one topic.
If your Valentine enjoys arranging flowers, eight of the Learning Tours will focus on floral arrangements. Four of the region’s top floral designers will take visitors through selected gardens in Medfield, Dedham, Ipswich or Manchester.
The designers will explain the techniques of growing a "cutting garden," cut a selection of flowers from the host gardens (the gardens are selected for their beautiful cutting gardens), and then demonstrate their special techniques for creating attractive arrangements for the home.
If your Valentine’s heart skips a beat at the thought of gardening, eight tours will focus on landscape design. At these gardens, the designers who created the landscapes will take visitors through the property and explain the ‘how’s’ and ‘why’s’ of landscaping.
Tour leaders include award-winning landscape professionals working in the region, including Kevin Doyle, Tom Wirth, and Hilarie Holdsworth. Properties on these tours will be in Dover, Wellesley, Gloucester and Rowley.
Five more tours will be unique looks into one-of-a-kind gardens. Does your beloved have an eye for history? A historic garden in Danvers, led by the designer who has brought the property back to its nineteenth-century splendor, will be open for one tour.
If your beloved loves trains, there are two tours of a one-of-a-kind garden built around a G-gauge model railroad.
And, if your Valentine covets the rare and unusual, a six-acre, private arboretum in Natick, rarely seen by the public, will be open only for two small-group tours led by a senior arborist.
Space on the Learning Tours is strictly limited and several tours are already near to capacity, which makes Valentine’s Day a great time to guarantee a spot. Demand has been brisk. When the 25 spaces on each tour are sold, the tour is closed.
Tickets for the General Tour make a very different and special kind of Valentine’s Day present: one that thinks ahead to the glories of next summer even as the February gloom settles over New England.
Tickets for the General Tour are $30. Learning Tour tickets, which also include a continental breakfast and entry to other gardens open that afternoon, are $45.
All proceeds from “Mass Gardens on Tour” benefit the educational mission of the Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts.
Complete information about “Mass Gardens on Tour,” including instructions on how to order tickets for both the General Tour and the Learning Tours, can be found online at www.gcfm.org. Click on the garden photo on the Home Page.
The Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts, Inc. is a non-profit association dedicated to assisting Massachusetts member clubs with education and an appreciation of Horticulture, Landscape and Floral Design, Gardening and Environmental Concerns. More than 190 Garden Clubs in Massachusetts are members of the GCFM, which is a charter member of the National Garden Clubs, Inc. and a member of the New England Region Garden Clubs.
(We thank Nancy Sitta for providing us with the above information and image. The spectacular garden pictured is located in Rowley and will be featured both on “Mass Gardens on Tour’s General Tour” and on two “Learning Tours.”)
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