Happy Spring at Winterthur!

Awake, thou wintry earth -

Fling off thy sadness!

Fair vernal flowers, laugh forth

Your ancient gladness!

~Thomas Blackburn 

 The March Bank at Winterthur was stunning this weekend with spring blooms of Glory-of-the-snow, Siberian squill, snowdrops and a few early daffodils.

Photos will never show hao beautiful it is in person!

I love this pink Glory-of-the-snow. You don't see many of these.

Looks like a snowdrop but this one is a Spring Snowflake.

Star Magnolias are just starting to open.



Looks like a pale pink Forsythia??

Lavendar crocus &

yellow Adonis.

Happy Spring little chipmunk!

Yes, you can come out and play:)



Winterthur Part 2

I took so many photos of Winterthur on Wednesday, I thought the outside photos needed their own blog post. Du Pont's woods were still beautiful despite the trees loosing most of their leaves and the slowly setting sun added a bit of magic to our late afternoon stroll. The photo above with the quote was the idea of my husband who wanted to make sure I gave him credit for the composition:)

A view of the mansion and pool. There are some 175 rooms in that big house!

 Beauty berry, I really need one of these bushes!

 Frog fountain in the Enchanted Woods.

 Beautiful koi still quite active despite the falling temps.

 My Zoe exiting the toadstool house.

What child wouldn't want one of these in their yard?



 I've loved this hippocampus sculpture since I was a child! I have a photo of me sitting on it when I was around 5 years old. My Aunt Frances has worked at Winterthur for over 25 years.

 Colorful leaves litter the forest floor.

Thought I would take a photo of this giant in black and white.

 

 This is the view du Pont wanted to 'keep open forever'.

One of my favorite sites in all the world!

My daughter finds herself a walking stick.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I have a few porcelain ornaments that I will be hand painting horses on and selling through Ebay. Keep checking my auctions to see what's listed. they make excellent gifts and no two are ever the same.

Printed porcelain ornaments are available through Cafepress for only $8.50!

Click here to see my designs.

Yuletide at Winterthur

Yesterday we went to see the Yuletide display at Winterthur in Wilmington, DE. Winterthur is a museum that was home to Henry Francis du Pont. He was born there and also died there. In his lifetime he amassed an enormous collection of early American decorative art, furniture and architectural elements (this bored my husband to no end). I've been to the museum part of Winterthur but I had never toured the actual home. For Christmas this year, several rooms were filled with gorgeous holiday trees and were also decorated as if to celebrate Henry's daughter's wedding in 1938.

The first interior room you walk into seems like you are outside. The four walls are actual facades taken from buildings.

Next we took an elevator up several floors to a room filled with three garden themed trees. The smell of the blooming paperwhites was wonderful!

A peony tree, a spring bulb tree and a fairy tree: all three things that Winterthur's gardens are known for.

Next was a formal sitting room complete with

desserts and punch set out for guests of the 1938 wedding celebration.

This stunning tree was decorated entirely with dried flowers.

We moved on to an Asian themed room with wall paper hand painted in 1775 (I kid you not, I asked the tour guide to repeat himself.).

And then a music/entertaining room with a spiral staircase to die for.

Onto a garden room set up with a bar and buffet.

This would be my favorite room if I lived here (and not just because there is a bar here:).

Another dining room for the wedding guests.

And a dining room for the du Pont family.

I had to ask what those two things were on the buffet table... knife urns filled with silver knives with ivory handles. The handles were painted to look like jade (why not get jade handled knives if you're that rich). The painting was by Benjamin West and depicts the American signers of Treaty of Paris, the British signers refused to sit for the painting.

An azalea themed tree. In the spring the gardens are filled with hundreds of blooming azaleas.

The last tree on the tour was a 1950's themed tree complete with bubble lights and vintage toys.

Happy Holidays!

Winterthur

We spent the day on Saturday at Winterthur in Wilmington, DE. Former home of Henry Francis du Pont who was an avid collector of early American furniture, antiques and very big on creating amazing gardens on the 60 acreas aurrounding the mansion. I love this place, it is quite magical!

The quarry garden is one of my favorites, hundreds of blooming primrose.

One of today's highlights was the peony walk. Hundreds of pink, white and red peopnies were still in bloom despite the rain.

Pink roses against an old rock wall are enchanting.

You can almost smell them, right?

Japanese iris at the koi pond was very fitting.

I don't know what this is, but I like it!

If I had loads of money, I would only drive vintage cars.

They have way more personality than new cars.

The swan hood ornament on this car had me swooning.

Nothing says "cool" more than a 50's era Caddy! Would ya look at those fins!