Milton blooms for Gardens and Homes Tour July 12

The Milton Garden Club will present its 15th Annual Gardens and Homes Tour featuring 10 very diverse private gardens, three historic homes, two public gardens, the Milton Theatre, the former Welch Pharmacy, and the Milton Historical Society’s Lydia Black Cannon Museum from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday, July 12. The tour is a walking tour of Union Street in historic Milton.

Volunteers at the newly opened Milton Theatre will be available to give tours of the building. At noon there will be a short presentation of "The Wizard of Oz," free to tour-goers as long as tickets are available. The museum at 210 Union St. will be open and is the location of the garden tour ticket booth and a master gardeners' booth where gardening questions can be answered. Restrooms will be open at the museum, and the garden club will be selling plants and providing free refreshments.

Another special stop this year will be a tour of the former Welch Pharmacy. The pharmacy has been closed for years and has recently been renovated. It will be open to tour-goers, as will the impressive garden, but not the private residence.

Nine more gardens and three historic homes will be open on Union Street.  The majority of gardens are hidden from view from the street and offer unique treasures: ponds; a swimming-pool garden; a shade garden with hundreds of begonias, hostas, ferns and coral bells; a formal garden; a garden with a Japanese-style tea house made from repurposed materials; and a sun garden with hundreds of perennials, to name a few.

The Milton Art Guild will host a reception and featured exhibit, About the Garden, from 4 to 6 p.m. for all tour participants at the Milton Historic Society. The artists who have been working in the gardens will bring their day’s work to display outdoors in the museum garden. Guests are invited to enjoy a glass of wine or a soda and light hors d’oeuvres while seeing the progress made on the garden art and chatting with the artists. There will also be a sale of garden accessories and bird feeders, a demonstration of wood carving, and some special musical selections.

The Milton Garden Club is dedicated to making Milton bloom with flowers. Club members plant and maintain 10 gardens, and over 50 urns and planters in downtown Milton. The annual garden tour is the club’s major source of fundraising.

Advance tickets are $15 and can be purchased at Lewes Printing, Hillside Flowers, Pepper’s Greenhouse, Salon Milton, Community Bank in Rehoboth or the Milton Farmers Market from 3 to 6 p.m., Friday, July 11. Day-of-tour tickets are $20 and can be purchased at the Milton Garden Club booth in front of the Milton Historical Society Museum, 210 Union St. The event will be held rain or shine.

For more information, go to www.themiltongardenclub.org, or to reserve tickets, call Kathryn at 302-684-3804.