On Thanksgiving Day, this GardenLady likes to not only enjoy the feast with family and friends, but she likes to think of the day as a day of giving thanks, of sitting around the dinner table and sharing with family and friends the things that are meaningful for which each person is grateful.
TheGardenLady wants to share with her readers as if each one of you is sitting at her table and to tell you all that she is so very grateful and give thanks for all the wonderful public and private gardens, arboretums and public parks that are open for her and the public to visit and enjoy. She is grateful for the vision people had to create these magnificent gardens and to keep these places and open these places for everyone to enjoy.
How wonderful it was/is that people of wealth created such beautiful places and now allow everyone to share in their creations. For example, in Deleware who wouldn’t thank the Duponts for making so many beautiful gardens available to us to tour, gardens like Mt. Cuba and Longwood Gardens. Or in Maine, a big thank you to the Rockefellers who have supported gardens in places like Mt. Desert Island for visitors to enjoy, gardens like the Asticou Azalea Garden or Thuya Gardens and if you can get an appointment on the right day, to visit the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden. I had the great pleasure of visiting all three this summer. Or places abroad that open gardens for visitors, like the National Trust for Gardens and Parks (see here).
And how wonderful that even people of modest means who create private gardens often open their gardens thanks to garden club tours or the Garden Conservancy that started in 1995 and opens to the public what they call the ” best private gardens” (see here) for people to visit; or the garden conservancy in England that has open day garden visits.
I am grateful for all the wonderful Botanic Gardens or Arboretums in this country and around the world: Places like the US Botanic Gardens; the National Arboretum in Washington, DCÂ ; Garvan Woodland Gardens in Arkansas; the Orto botanico di Palermo in Sicily, Italy; or Hortus Botanicus in Amsterdam.
And I am grateful for the wonderful gardens at colleges and universities that are open to the public, gardens like those at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania; Princeton University’s magnificent arboretum and gardens in Princeton, NJ; Wellesley College gardens in Wellesley, Mass. and Berkeley’s Botanical Garden in Berkeley, California to name just a few.
And I am grateful for politicians or wives of politicians who had or have the foresight to create gardens. A loving thank you to Lady Bird Johnson who did so much to promote wildflowers in her state and around the country and who created The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Texas.  See here.
And a heartfelt thanks to Mayor Daley of Chicago who encourages plantings and gardens all over that city. He has an annual program called Mayor Daley’s Landscape Awards that recognizes Chicago gardeners, both resident and businesses, who make Chicago greener by planting gardens. All cities and towns should have these Awards- and many do, like Cape May, NJ that give awards for gardens.
1999 Mayor Daley’s Landscape Award – First Place, Single Family Residential, Region
And I am grateful that so many nurseries now have show gardens that are a delight to see, nurseries like Russell Gardens Wholesale with their hosta garden or Matterhorn Nursery in New York (see here) that has wonderful show gardens like their Formal Garden that is based on the Renaissance Garden at David Austin Roses in the United Kingdom or Cricket Hill Garden in Connecticut that has a seven acres terraced woodland garden they call Peony Heaven.
I am grateful for all those professional gardeners, landscapers and garden workers as well as all the volunteers who help in so many public or private gardens or even create their own gardens for people to see and visit. Professionals and volunteers help plant gardens, care for gardens, save and protect old gardens. There are the wonderful projects for volunteers like Garden Your City or The Trust for Public Land or Master Gardeners who have shown gardens in the US, Canada and now starting in New Zealand and England and there are even people who love plants who have adopted a small island on the street in front of their homes and planted them with flowers.
I can not thank everyone on this short post. But to all of you mentioned above and all of you whom I had no space or time to mention, on this Thanksgiving, TheGardenLady wants you to know how much I appreciate what you have done for me and how much more beautiful and healthier a world you have helped to create and what a wonderful, joyous environment you have made for all of us. There are not enough words in my vocabulary to express how much you and your plantings have done for me. I cannot thank you all enough what what you have given me. And so this post of Thanksgiving is for you. A simple Thank you will have to suffice.
