Have a green thumb?
Garden Lover's Weekend in New Bern
We have gardens galore! What a weekend ahead–the tulips are perky and bright, ready for you to see at Tryon Palace in New Bern’s Garden Lover’s Weekend. Free admission to the gardens, heritage plants for sale and Suzuki violins and dulcimers will also be part of the fun, not to mention the famous Tryon Palace Fife & Drum Corps. No wonder George Washington danced here in this beautiful city on the banks of the Trent River!
This is a unique chance to own rare or historic perennials, herbs, annuals, trees and shrubs–straight from the Palace greenhouse to your own garden. Make a day of it with New Bern’s Historic Homes Tour, too.
Spring Garden Tours at the "People's House"
You’ll find more ideas for your home garden with a stop on Saturday, April 16, to the Executive Mansion on South Blount Street in downtown Raleigh for the Spring Open Garden Tours. Meet volunteer docents in the garden who can tell you about the bee and bird friendly landscaping, the 20 varieties of lettuce in the kitchen garden–we hear salad is the Governor’s favorite food!—and see interesting North Carolina artist’s sculptures.
The gates will be open from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., and no reservations are required for the free tour. The Executive Mansion–“the people’s house”–is one of the finest examples of Queen Anne cottage style of Victorian architecture in the country.
Gardens and the North Carolina Story
Growing great food in the kitchen garden has been a way of life here forever. Most North Carolinians lived on small farms during the 1800s.
Just a block away from the Executive Mansion, at the new N.C. Museum of History exhibit, “The Story of North Carolina,” you can step inside the restored two-room house that carpenter Solomon Robson built in Pitt County in 1742, and learn about the lifestyles of many farm families before the Civil War. In those days folks grew veggies aplenty–they didn’t know they were growing fancy and trendy “heirlooms!”
The exhibit opens April 16.