Plan now for advance tickets to visit local notable gardens

Text by Andra Moss
Photo by Fred Gonsowski

Spring flowers, optimism and inspiration generally go hand in hand for gardeners. Happily, the 26-year tradition of visiting some of the country’s finest private gardens is back with the return of Open Garden Days, sponsored by The Garden Conservancy. 

After a Covid-induced pause last season, the conservancy is again offering tours, starting in June, of select gardens. However, there will be capacity limits and visitors must purchase tickets in advance––no showing up and buying a ticket on-site.  Online ticket sales (gardenconservancy.org/open-days) begin in mid-May and are expected to sell out, so gardeners mark your calendars. 

Locally, one highlight will certainly be a tour of the Falls Village garden of Page Dickey, co-founder of Open Days and one of America’s best-known garden writers. Dickey and her husband recently relocated from Westchester County, in New York, leaving behind her celebrated garden at Duck Hill, a landscape she had spent 34 years nurturing. Her new garden is 17 acres of rolling fields and woodland around a former Methodist church. It will be available to tour on Sunday, June 20.

Dickey bubbles with enthusiasm about the return of Open Garden Days, saying it is “thrilling to think of visiting gardens again! And sharing them. I love welcoming people here, exchanging ideas, comparing notes. By going to each other’s gardens, quietly walking around, drinking in details, asking questions, we all learn and get inspired.”