Mill Pond Garden bursting with fall color for visitors Nov. 5
Mill Pond Garden will welcome visitors to enjoy the peak of fall color from 9:30 a.m. to 12 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 5, at 31401 Melloy Court, Lewes.
Tickets, available at millpondgarden.com, are $15 to admit a vehicle with up to six visitors, or cash only at the gate.
The enjoyment of fall hues is perhaps the biggest garden color thrill of the year, especially with Mill Pond Garden’s deliberate choices of trees, shrubs, and perennials blazing away with yellow, gold, orange, red, ruby, purple, rust and tan. Mill Pond Garden was planted with fall in mind for an annual spectacle not to be missed, perhaps one of the most intense available in the region.
The colors of tree and shrub leaves are offset by the many flowering plants, like salvias and pansies with blue and purple. All are accented by several shrubs and trees with red or orange berries including the fruiting fuyu persimmon, native deciduous hollies, evergreen hollies, hawthorn, crab apple, viburnum, nandina and yew. There are also some late-blooming perennials and flowering shrubs such as brugmansia (angels trumpet), ligularia, roses and camellias.
Camellias are carefree, pest-free evergreens of great beauty, up to 10 feet tall with shiny leaves from which tea can be made. The Japanese types bloom in fall, and the Chinese types bloom in late winter and spring. Hybrids between the two have produced camellias that bloom in midwinter mild spells. A collection of several such camellias can provide winter flowers from late October to early June, heaviest in November, December, March and April. Camellias may live more than 200 years. Not all camellias are winter hardy in the Cape Region, so gardeners should choose plants from local nurseries for hardy-here selections. To learn about Mill Pond Garden’s favorite camellia selections, go to millpondgarden.com. Camellias are underused in the Cape Region, but they are real tough workers for reliable garden beauty with little effort or maintenance.
Mill Pond Garden, the Cape Region’s only public botanic garden, is a small gem with 2,000 feet of pathways, garden rooms and wonderful vistas on Red Mill Pond and surrounding forest.
Nationally recognized, with over 1,700 local subscribers, the holistic, nonprofit, Delaware-incorporated Mill Pond Garden is the only public botanical garden serving the Cape Region, a reliable source of visitor enjoyment, great photo ops, professional horticultural information, and ideas for local gardens and gardeners, featuring mostly native plants. The garden is a National Wildlife Federation Certified Wildlife Habitat. It is also a popular venue for small-scale events. See the website above for details.
