Dunn Garden and The Center for Urban Horticulture

The afternoon of the first day was spent at the Dunn Garden and the Center for Urban Horticulture.

The Dunn Gardens were created by the Dunn family with design layout by the Olmsted brothers. The three residences are connected by trails of woodlands. The garden around the caretakers' house showed the most detail with collections of unusual plants and many lovely specimens in pots.

There were some interesting details in the paving. Not sure if this was thought up by the Dunn family or the Olmsted brothers, although I tend to think it was a Dunn creation. It doesn't seem very Olmsted-y.

Check out this cool lath house in the background:

Some impressive container plants:

I like these angled ledges of rock that make little tray gardens:

This is a bad photo but I just had to show this clever way of supporting tall allium stems. I love they way they grow through the boxwood and look like antennae.

The woodlands and woodland edges had lovely scenes too:

Next we were on to the Center for Urban Horticulture where Riz Reyes showed us around.

The grounds were lovely.

The adjoining Elisabeth C. Miller Library with its rows and rows of horticultural books was drool-worthy. I wish I lived closer to it, I'd never need to buy another gardening book again. They had everything!