We will see you in Orange County for our 2024 HGW tour.


Our 2022 tour was a tutorial on classic garden design. Visitors toured an Italian garden, an Asian garden, a French and English garden and a typical Virginia piedmont farm garden.
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 Tre Sorelle - Designing the Italian Garden…
Head Gardener Barry Grain explains that “within... Italian Renaissance gardens, the use of water, statuary, symmetry, topiary, formal hedging, and focal points are all key.” Balance and symmetry were essential to creating a sense of manmade order.

 Windrock - A contemporary garden for a talented arranger
All the essential elements of design are evident at Windrock: color, texture, balance, rhythm, movement, proportion. In addition to the variety of perennials and bulbs, the landscape is a veritable arboretum, featuring unique and sculptural species and cultivars of trees and shrubs. It all serves to provide a wealth of beautiful material for use in floral design. 
Photo by Carla Passarello

​GREENWAY - Gardens in the early 1900s… 
Gardens at the end of the 1890s and early 1900s, were started around the house for enjoyment and beauty. Boxwoods were planted to create garden areas. Over the century and into current times, garden beds expanded to include flowers of many species, shrubs, trees, herbs and lilies. 
Pastoral beauty at historic Greenway Farm in Madison Mills, a Madison family property - photo by Carla Passarello

​The Garden at Bassett House - Elements of Japanese garden design:
 “Japanese garden design is not just a style of landscaping. It is an art deeply rooted in a way of thinking and feeling about our place in nature.” (David Slawson) 
 A (Japanese) garden is a place for contemplation. There are few flowers, and evergreens are preferred to deciduous plants, creating a sense of timelessness and anchoring the garden in every season. There are four essential elements used in a Japanese garden: rocks, water, plants and ornaments. Curves and Zigzags evoke the mysterious “hide and reveal” principle important in Japanese aesthetic; structures aid contemplation and symbolism exists in paths, rocks, ornaments and pruned shapes.
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