Mill Pond Garden sets spring spectacular visiting day April 16
To celebrate mid-spring beauty with thousands of flowering bulbs, shrubs, trees, perennials and native ephemerals in full glory, Mill Pond Garden will welcome visitors from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Sunday, April 16, at 31401 Melloy Court, Lewes.
Tickets, available at millpondgarden.com, are $15 to admit a vehicle with up to six visitors.
Mill Pond Garden on Red Mill Pond is a holistic, nonprofit public botanic garden with a mission to provide inspiration and ideas for best gardening choices in the Cape Region. A horticulturist will be on duty to answer questions.
This particular point in spring includes the greatest variety of flowering species for Cape Region gardens including early disease-proof azaleas, rhododendrons, hellebores, camellias, spireas, tulips, daffodils, iris, anemone blanda, wisteria and more. Perennial spring ephemerals include trilliums, woodland phlox and bluebells; and there will be flowering trees such as redbud, dogwood, sorrel, Hawthorne and crabapple. Ground covers may also still be in bloom including pachysandra, pulmonaria, herbs, and periwinkle and ajuga.
The garden has abundant birds, frogs, turtles on basking logs, and other wildlife, as well as beautiful butterfly koi and shubunkin fish in a tea garden pond and gazebo. Visitors may see early broods of native tiger swallowtail butterflies feasting on the azaleas and herb perennials. Expect to see wood ducks, ospreys, great blue herons and many more wonderful water birds on Red Mill Pond during this season.
Mill Pond Garden is designed to be a four-season, year-round garden. Most of the plants are natives. The non-native plants are beneficial species that provide not only ornamental beauty but also work well for the wildlife which the garden encourages, such as pollinators and birds.
The garden provides water, habitat, nesting, overwintering hibernaculums, and food species of plants, insects and animals, all that is necessary as a Certified Wildlife Habitat by the National Wildlife Federation.
