Kudos to the Georgetown Garden Tour — and Congratulations to Dumbarton Oaks Park


We know Georgetown loves its homes, streets and trees. Now, we know that it loves its gardens and parks, too, if not more.
The organizers and volunteers of the Georgetown Garden Tour are to be commended for this year’s event, which delighted many and moved along without a hitch. As for Dumbarton Oaks Park Conservancy, it won $50,000 to help restore part of the park, which is now not so secret anymore.

The 85th annual Georgetown Garden Tour began to run out of tickets May 11 as neighbors and visitors kept up a steady stream as they went to Christ Church to check in and then to Georgetown back and side yards. Tour volunteers had to write on some tour tickers, “admission for two.”

Although the weather forecast was mixed, the day got busier and warmer with more than 700 tickets sold, a record for the garden tour.

Lovers of horticulture and design had the chance to see seven unique private gardens as well as 27-acre Dumbarton Oaks Park — “America’s Secret Garden” — on R Street.

On Monday, May 13, it was announced by American Express and the National Trust for Historic Preservation that the Dumbarton Oaks Park Conservancy would receive a $50,000 grant to repair the garden’s original built structures including viewing platform, stone houses and retaining wall, as part of Partners in Preservation’s multi-million-dollar commitment to preservation.

The tour included gardens that featured spring foliage and a palette of flowering trees, shrubs and perennials as well as the contemporary sculptures in a garden of an R Street home. Aligned with Georgetown’s history and the neighborhood’s close quarters, each garden displayed its own sense of privacy and peace.

All proceeds from the Georgetown Garden Tour will go to the preservation of the historic parks, public spaces, and tree-lined streets of Georgetown, the garden club says, as it should be.

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