The Necessity of Gardens: A Year-Round Affair
Ah…gardening, the ancient urge to stir up the dirt, to plant tiny seeds and bulbs, to trim branches and to pull weeds starts deep in the winter. At Chippokes Plantation State Park, as an Education Specialist, I feel a special affinity for these ante-bellum gardens.
Roses are the seminal flower of summer. The scents and sounds of summer in garden are soothing to the over-stressed soul.
To know that the bulbs I split and replant, the branches I lovingly trim, and the flowers I see emerge have been part of America's colonial, civil war, and modern history is truly meaningful. Gardens, as do our Virginia State Parks, reflect who we are and where we came from.
Generations of daffodil bulbs have spread in patches around the gardens.
A garden is a human extension of the landscape. Since the earliest historical records, the landscape has been another tool in the human arsenal of survival– we shape it, cultivate it, and groom it, reshaping wild plants into domestic cousins for food, fabric, beauty, and healing.
Cotton, a symbol of America's struggle on the path towards democracy for all, is still grown in the park as part of its farming program. Farms and gardens reflect who we are and where we come from.
As the offspring of the supermarket era we find more and more people want to get in touch with their innate need to cultivate, we at Chippokes Plantation State Park take pride in our formal gardens, demonstration gardens, and our historical display of farming and gardening tools in the Farm & Forestry Museum located in the park.
The Farm & Forestry Museum serves as the backdrop for the annual Steam & Gas Engine Show on May 30-31, 2015
At Historic Garden Week April 18-April 25, 2015and we need your help:
We have two garden workdays scheduled: Chippokes Plantation State Park Volunteer Coordinator Kathryn Lane by email here or call 757-294-3625.
Purple Iris sway in the breeze behind the Jones-Stewart Mansion. We need your help to get the gardens ready for Historic Garden Week April 18-15, 2015.
Known as Paradise Gardens, the gardens around the Jones-Stewart Mansion, offered moments of respite and beauty against the backdrop of the growing pains of a new nation and the, sometimes difficult and poignant lives, lived during the 18th and 19th centuries.
The mansion makes a great backdrop for photography sessions including weddings, engagements and children's portraits. Call the park for information on how to reserve the mansion grounds for a photo shoot.
Tours of the mansion and gardens are available during regular scheduled times all year long–click herefor a schedule. You can even book a private tour of the mansion and gardens for your group. Please contact the park's Education Specialists at 757-294-3625 for more information on private tours.
The interior of the mansion reflects a variety of time periods and the aesthetics of the different owners of the mansion.
The Virginia State Parks Customer Service Center at 1-800-933-PARK.
I hope you can join us in watching the gardens come alive in tribute to our nation's history and our need to reconnect to nature.