Georgetown Garden Tour, May 13
By • April 12, 2023 0 3392
By Lee Child
The magnificent terraced gardens of Evermay estate, which have enchanted guests for more than 200 years, will once again be open to the public on May 13 as part of the annual Georgetown Garden Tour.
For years the tour’s lead attraction, the gardens, planted with decades-old boxwoods, roses and azaleas surrounding the Federal-style mansion at 1623 28th St. NW have not been open since 2011. On this special day in May, honoring the 93rd year of the tour, however, the garden gates will open, the fountains will flow, and statuary and pristinely planted beds on the three-and-a-half-acre estate will welcome you. Seven other spectacular gardens in Georgetown will also be featured.
One of the oldest garden walks in the country, the Georgetown Garden Tour was launched in 1928 as a way of raising much needed funds for the Georgetown Children’s House, which provided day care to children whose mothers worked in and around Georgetown. Evermay was part of the first tour, along with Dumbarton Oaks. In 1938, over 1000 visitors supported the tour and at $1 per-head, over $1,000 was raised!
In 1955, Mrs. Dwight D. Eisenhower and Mrs. Richard M. Nixon headed up the two-day “garden pilgrimage,” as it was called then. In the 1960s, patrons of the tour included Lady Bird Johnson, along with most of the spouses of President Lyndon Johnson’s cabinet. Famous journalists, along with Supreme Court justices, supported the tour. Secretary of State Dean Acheson made his garden available for the tour, as did members of the Harriman family.
Due to the success of the tour and the enthusiasm it generated for the Children’s House, the organization continued to provide services until 1999, when city services for childcare dried up and Children’s House was forced to close its doors.
The garden tour, which had become a much-anticipated annual event, was then embraced by The Georgetown Garden Club which has organized the event every year since 2000. Proceeds from the tour go to maintain local public gardens and green spaces.
This year, in addition to the gardens of Evermay, gardens of every size will be showcased.
One is a rich urban oasis filled with delicate plants along with a Wardian case for orchids. (A “Wardian case” is an early kind of terrarium, often used for exotic plants who don’t like the cold.) Another is a newly planted garden boasting a stumpery, which is an intentional arrangement of stumps and logs. Stumperies offer the perfect environment for ferns and woodland gems, and this one is home to a resident rabbit!
The American science writer Loren Eiseley wrote, “and if there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.” This year’s tour might well have been designed by Merlin — from the lily-filled pond with grasses in a small Georgetown garden to the rich variety of cherub-filled pools on the terraced grounds of Evermay, there are plenty of water elements.
Tickets may be purchased on line at georgetowngardenclubdc.org or on the day of the tour at tour headquarters, Christ Church, 31st and O Streets, between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. Tickets are $45, $40 if purchased before May 1. All proceeds from the tour go directly back to the greening of Georgetown, to its parks, public spaces, and tree-lined streets. Come out and celebrate the freshness of spring — Georgetown at its lush finest and very best!
