Sunday, March 17, 2013

Garvan Tulips


Yesterday Gina and I along with my sister and her daughters visited Garvan Woodland Gardens in Hot Springs, Arkansas. The Gardens were the dream of Verna Cook Garvan. The site for Garvan Woodland Gardens was purchased in the 1920's. In 1956 Mrs. Garvan began to develop it as a garden and possible future residence. She was intimately familiar with the land and laid out each path, marking every tree to be removed. She also personally chose each new plant and selected its location.


When she died in 1993, Mrs. Garvan gave the property to the University of Arkansas Foundation. The Gardens are now an independent department of the University's Fay Jones School of Architecture and continue to flourish and grow.


The peak tulip viewing times at the gardens are March 15 through April 1. Garvan Woodland Gardens are beautiful any time of the year, but I think that the tulip season is quite possibly the best.


Garvan Woodland Gardens is the largest remaining undeveloped tract of land on Lake Hamilton, the Mid-South's most popular recreational Lake. There are over three miles of recreational trails.  This time of year many of the trails are lined with thousands of tulips.


We had a very enjoyable afternoon.  The temperatures were quite warm and the flowers were so beautiful.  This time of year the tulips are quite impressive, but there are other flowers in bloom.  The hyacinths  were very pretty but the sweet aroma was even better.



Garvan Woodland Gardens is an amazing place.  If you ever visit Hot Springs, Arkansas I highly recommend a visit to Garvan Woodland Gardens.








8 comments:

  1. So wonderfully beautiful! And heaven will be even better!!
    Thanks for posting.....since I'm still looking out at 2 feet of snow....it gives me hope that spring really will come up here too.

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  2. Wow this was a feast for sure.
    How beautiful!

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  3. That looks like a fabulous place. Thanks for the virtual tour, I can almost smell the hyacinths!

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  4. Gorgeous -- what an amazing lady! Thanks for sharing Rich. xo

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  5. A wonderful place by the looks... thanks for showing us all those lovely tulips!
    I also enjoyed all the Ice photos in a previous post ...very interesting!

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  6. Thanks for posting about Garvan Woodland Gardens. Your photos are beautiful and your captions are great. We would like to tell you that Garvan is misspelled, and it might be hard for someone to find us with your spelling.

    thank you so much for posting about the Gardens!!
    -Sherre Freeman, Marketing Director

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  7. Thanks Sherre for your kind words. The only excuse I can think of for misspelling Garvan is that my son's name is Gavin. I have updated the blog with proper spelling. :)

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  8. Your photos are beautiful as well as the stories you tell. From the lovely family in Belize to the Gardens...enjoyed them all~

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