Make A Painting Sunday (6/13)
Old Lyme, CT - GardenFest at the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme is a two-week celebration of the site’s historic gardens, featuring special events, garden tours, demonstrations, and family activities. From June 11 through June 27, visitors can enjoy a wide variety of activities for all ages and interest levels. Most events are free with Museum admission.
Visitors to the Museum understand immediately the site’s appeal to the artists who stayed at “Miss Florence” Griswold’s boardinghouse over a century ago. Her house, gardens, and river view were favored subjects of her artistic boarders. Visitors stand at the site of Childe Hassam’s favorite spot, stroll Miss Florence’s lovingly restored old-fashioned garden, and rest where William Chadwick posed his model for the now famous painting, On the Piazza.
GardenFest events begin on June 11 with the third annual garden luncheon featuring Pauline Lord of White Gate Farm. Lord speaks about the importance of eating locally grown food for both health reasons and to support local agriculture. There is an additional fee for this event and reservations are required.
The Museum’s volunteers, Garden Gang, host a plant sale June 11 and 12 from 9am to 3pm. The heirloom perennials and unusual annuals range from $5 to $50. Proceeds benefit the Museum’s garden projects.
The Garden Gang also hosts a series of demonstrations beginning at 11am on these dates. June 15, The World of Composting; June 17, Flower Arranging; June 22, Selecting and Caring for Roses; June 24, Planting and Caring for Vegetable Gardens.
On June 16 from 11am to 3pm, meet the man Martha Stewart hails as the maker of her favorite flowerpots. Guy Wolff, the master potter from Litchfield, known for creating functional art based on historic designs demonstrates how he makes his hand-thrown pots. A selection of Guy Wolff Pottery will also be available to purchase.
A walking tour of the gardens and grounds takes place at 11am on June 18 and 19 and 2pm on June 25 and 26.
Garden lovers are invited to enjoy Café Flo Fridays and Saturdays from 11:30am-3pm and from 12:30-3pm on Sundays. Menu items are garden-fresh and family-friendly. Eat in the garden or pick up a basket and blanket and picnic along the river.
GardenFest includes a variety of activities for families too! Each Sunday, visitors can pick up all the painting supplies necessary to make their own masterpieces in garden or down by the river. No experience necessary. In addition to the painting activity, visitors of all ages can enjoy garden-related fun. On June 13, make a painting using flowers, leaves, and twigs as brushes; on June 20, make a t-shirt for Dad for Father’s Day; and on June 27, add to our painting of 1,000 flowers. There is a special Family Day to celebrate the gardens on Wednesday, June 23. At 11am award-winning children’s author Page McBrier will read her book The Chicken and the Worm and teach kids how to make a worm farm for great garden composting. From 2-4pm, kids learn to create a flower arrangement in containers that they bring from home.
GardenFest culminates on Sunday, June 27 with Connecticut Historic Gardens Day. As part of the statewide, 14-site collaboration, Connecticut’s Historic Gardens, the Florence Griswold Museum, hosts expert tours of the gardens and refreshments.
The Florence Griswold Museum is located on an 11-acre site in the historic village of Old Lyme at 96 Lyme Street, exit 70 off I-95. Admission is $9 for adults, $8 for seniors, $7 students, and free to children 12 and under. For more information, visit the Museum’s web site www.FlorenceGriswoldMuseum.org or call 860-434-5542 x 111.
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