Mill Pond Garden to welcome early spring visitors April 13

Mill Pond Garden will welcome visitors for an Open Day from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., Sunday, April 13, at 31401 Melloy Court, Lewes, to celebrate mid-spring beauty in full glory.

The site is an IRS-certified nonprofit botanical garden on Red Mill Pond with a mission to provide holistic, beautiful, sustainable and educational plantings for the enjoyment and education of the community. A horticulturist will be on duty to answer questions.

This part of spring includes the greatest variety of flowering species for Cape Region gardens, including early disease-proof azaleas, rhododendrons, hellebores, camellias, tulips, daffodils, iris, wisteria, and perennial spring ephemerals like trilliums, woodland phlox and bluebells. Flowering trees such as redbud, dogwood, sorrel tree, hawthorn and crabapple add to the display. Ground covers may also still be in bloom including pachysandra, pulmonaria, herbs and periwinkle. The garden has abundant birds, turtle basking logs, frogs, other wildlife, as well as beautiful butterfly koi and shubunkin fish in a tea garden pond and gazebo.

The native and non-native sedges, genus Carex, will be flowering and/or seeding at this time. Sedges are ground covers, great for adding color, texture and wildlife benefit to beds or lawns. Some sedges are for sun and some for shade, and they come in blue, pink, brown and every shade of green. They range in height from a few inches up to a couple feet, with habits from straight-up leaves to arching, mounding shapes.  Semi-evergreen sedges can be used to replace a lawn, eliminating the need to mow except once a year in late February. However, they are not as tough as lawn grasses and not suitable for heavy foot traffic. Sedges can also do well in pots.

Mill Pond Garden is designed to be a four-season, year-round garden demonstrating how that can be achieved in the Cape Region, with woody plants labeled and professional horticultural advice on hand. Most of the plants are natives. The non-native plants are beneficial species that not only provide ornamental beauty but also work well for the local wildlife such as pollinators and birds. The garden provides water, habitat, nesting, overwintering shelters, and food species of plants, insects and animals, all that is necessary to be a Certified Wildlife Habitat by the National Wildlife Federation.

A holistic garden is one that includes and encourages wildlife and native plants as well as satisfying the desire for beauty. It will have both still and moving fresh water, native shrubs, ground covers, and broad, dense, mixed-species beds with both evergreen and deciduous plants to provide habitat and food. Also present are key native trees like oak, black cherry and willows, which attract abundant caterpillars in spring that will become food for baby birds. A holistic garden is the easiest to maintain and also the most satisfying and interesting to live in and with, the most like nature.

Tickets for open days are available, along with more information, at millpondgarden.com.