Mill Pond Garden director’s tour April 24 to spill secrets for Cape cultivators

Mill Pond Garden will offer a director’s tour from 10 to 11 a.m., Sunday, April 24, offering tips to help ensure local gardens flourish.

Tickets are $25 per person and may be purchased at millpondgarden.com. Class size is limited.

Special consideration will be given to small flowering trees, landscape layering and making a four-season garden. Premium plant choices will be pointed out for deer resistance, long flowering, benefits to wildlife and overall performance with year-round blooms. This tour is aimed at the peak of mid-spring flowering.

Among the vertical garden stories, one of the richest is the mid-story, which includes small flowering trees and large-growing shrubs in the range of 12 to 20 feet, big enough to provide shade and space for underplanting or seating. The tour will include ideas for sitting areas, contemplation environments, surprises, and accommodation and encouragement of wildlife.

Mill Pond Garden, at three-quarters of an acre, offers a variety of deciduous, ornamental flowering small trees for viewing, such as crabapples, mimosas, Japanese maples, crepe myrtles and hybrid dogwoods. Native trees on site include dogwoods, redbuds, sourwoods, hawthorn and tree-size viburnums. All these trees and shrubs are beneficial to insects and animals, offering flower nectar, fruits, seeds, shelter for nesting and habitat for insects that also provide food for birds. For beauty, they provide foliage color, flowers, beautiful growth habits, interesting bark and bright fall leaf color.

All these trees can be recommended for doing well in the Cape Region and throughout Zone 7.

The garden will be featuring the peak of bloom for azaleas, tulips, camellias, perennial ephemerals like trilliums, and more. Visitors will likely be able to enjoy views of the hunting ospreys, geese with goslings, and basking pond turtles on Red Mill Pond.

Mill Pond Garden, located at 31401 Melloy Court, Lewes, is a nonprofit, public botanical garden on Red Mill Pond with a mission to provide holistic, beautiful, sustainable and educational plantings for the enjoyment and education of the community.