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Lewes Anual Garden Tour a success

July 3, 2014

The Lewes Chamber of Commerce would like to thank all the numerous volunteers and members who helped with this year’s Lewes Garden Tour, our 24th.The cloudy skies provided the perfect weather to tour the beautiful “hidden gardens.” We especially are grateful to our event committee chaired by Carolyn Marshall. The chamber is indebted to the owners of this year’s tour gardens: Jean and Jerry Whiddon, William and Marilyn Carpenter, Sharon Dardine, Bonnie Osler and Brook Hedge, George Farrah, Jon and Nancy Ellsworth and Jeff West for their willingness to participate.

Thanks also to Lewes in Bloom Co-Chairs Warren Golde and Linda Davison and their members for the restoration of the Butterfly Garden in George H. P. Smith Park and to Lynette Palen of Cadbury at Lewes for bringing to our attention the Monarch Butterfly project at Cadbury. Both Butterfly Gardens were included on the tour.

Long before the flowers are in bloom, the hard-working veteran members of the garden tour committee begin the preparations. Carolyn Marshall began selecting the tour gardens within days of last year’s garden tour. Her committee members are Brenda Brady, Betty and Gary Grunder, Anne Schulze, Ted Becker, Ellen Serafini and Jay Reamer. We would like to thank the City of Lewes for getting water in George H. P. Smith Park which enabled the Butterfly Garden restoration to take place and for letting us use Zwaanendael Park for the Garden Market vendors and George H. P. Smith Park for the tour.

We appreciate the city’s street department’s delivery of barricades and the Lewes Police Department for their assistance on the day of the tour providing a safe walking environment for tour-goers and others visiting the garden market.

The chamber is very appreciative of the time donated by Paul Devilbiss for the garden pond installation demonstration throughout the day. Our thanks also to the artists who were painting in some of the gardens - Libby Zando and Cape Artists Ellen Serafini, Bev Andrion, Sonia Hunt and Jean Bowers, and finally to Southern Delaware Tourism for partial funding of the event.

As previously mentioned, this event is fortunate to have enormous community-based volunteer support in addition to the event committee. More than 80 volunteers participated in numerous facets of the tour including serving as greeters in the tour gardens, setting up tables and chairs for the food tent and shuttle service to the gardens from chamber members Beebe Healthcare, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Gallo Realty, Cadbury at Lewes, Irish Eyes Pub & Restaurant, Lewes Senior Center, the Jolly Trolley and Turner Hastings for coordinating all the drivers - Marvin, Jack, Joe, John, Tom, Warren, David, Chris and Sandy - you are the best and made all the visitors who took the shuttles feel welcomed to Lewes.

We also are very grateful to the following chamber members who provided additional support for the effort: Sign*A*Rama for updating the signs, Dean Design for program design, University of Delaware College of Earth, Ocean & Environment for the use of their tent; The Inn at Canal Square for hosting the garden owners reception, and Casa Amici for the Refreshment Tent catering. We had additional assistance selling the tickets from the Rehoboth Beach Museum and Windsor’s Flowers in Rehoboth and The Inn at Canal Square, The Stepping Stone, Cadbury at Lewes and Windsor’s Plant Outlet in Lewes.

Betsy Reamer
executive director
Lewes Chamber of Commerce

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