Dazzling light show to open at Mill Pond Garden Nov. 29
Mill Pond Garden’s popular Garden of Lights show will open with viewing appointments from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 29, and Friday, Dec. 4.
In 2019, more than 2,500 visitors enjoyed the show. To purchase tickets or subscribe to receive email notice of other open nights for the light show, go to millpondgarden.com.
The next open nights are not scheduled until a week in advance, when good weather can be predictable.
In accord with the latest state COVID-19 health restrictions, masks and social distancing apply. Only 12 cars per half hour will be ticketed to allow plenty of room for visitor safety.
Director Michael Zajic said, “There is no safer venue, no happier way to enjoy going out, than a public garden in this pandemic – all fresh air and lots of space.”
Last year’s four shows all booked up quickly. Early ticket purchase is recommended for each open viewing date.
Zajic said, “We think this is Delmarva’s only large walk-through light show, nothing more enchanting. Many visitors have said they like it better than Longwood Gardens’ light show.”
Light displays include a moon, mushrooms, meteor shower, buzzing bees on flowers and more. The theme is the garden itself, featuring shrubs, trees, flower beds, dancing fountain, flowing stream and pond all adorned with lights. Clumps of lighted roses, hyacinths and lilies made of lights all come together in this perfectly enchanting experience. There is not a better way to see a light show than to be immersed in it, with a fragrant cherrywood fire for warming up.
The residential neighborhood supports this show by volunteer staffing it to raise funds for local food banks and other local charities. Weather permitting, the show is planned to open four evenings from Nov. 29 to Friday, Jan. 1.
Mill Pond Garden subscribership has grown from 125 local residents in 2018 to more than 1,300 local households today, increasing constantly. The garden offers a schedule of open days at peaks of the flowering season and provides horticultural education, information and expertise to visitors.
Mill Pond Garden is a holistic, sustainable, mostly native public garden for year-round beauty in all seasons and for the accommodation of abundant wildlife. Animals get to know the gardeners as if they were their pets. Everything from birds and bunnies to frogs, fish and the beloved garter snakes come to them and allow themselves to be handled. Zajic said, “St. Francis [patron saint of animals] would feel right at home here.”
The Garden of Lights gives delighted visitors a half-hour walk-through. The show has grown in size to 36,000 lights that promote use of LED energy-saving bulbs. Some visitors have called it magical. There is a wonderful view of lights along Red Mill Pond’s shores and neighboring docks.
The show is designed by Michael Zajic, who was trained in the mechanics at Longwood Gardens. He used that training to create a world-class, million-light show at Brookside Gardens for the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission. Zajic also consulted for the renovation of the Lewis Ginter Botanic Garden’s light show in Richmond, Va., in 1998. A horticulturist, Zajic is the founder of Delaware Botanic Gardens in Dagsboro, founder of Mill Pond Garden in Nassau, and founder of the Cape Farm and Garden Tour of 2016.
The Mill Pond Garden light show is a lively garden-themed fantasy. The displays are creatively crafted by a team of four Sussex County gardeners trained for lights.
Mill Pond Garden promotes enjoyment and knowledge of gardens and plants in the New American Style of gardening with key native plants for pollinators and wildlife, supporting ideas of nature’s friend Doug Tallamy through the traditional landscape design of romantic walking gardens.
