Mt. Cuba Center: A Wonderful Woodland Wildflower Garden

Mt Cuba Center 1 by Larry Wilder

Spring is around the corner. I can’t wait. I look forward to visiting one of my favorite gardens called Mt. Cuba Center, in Delaware, known as the mid-Atlantic’s finest woodland wildflower garden. This 650 acre estate preserves and promotes an appreciation of plants native to the plateau between the coastal plain and the Appalachian Mountains that is called the Piedmont area. Mt. Cuba encourages the use of these native plants in gardens and supports their conservation in nature.

While at Mt. Cuba you can visit their woodland wildflower gardens and formal landscapes. Inside the garden you can walk in the woods, visit ponds, walk along the Dogwood Path, visit the meadow, see hundreds of trilliums in the Trillium Garden, see the trial garden, go to the lilac allee, visit the Round Garden where there are tulips and delphinium displays followed in the summer by heat loving annuals and native perennials, etc.

Trillium pusillum by dogtooth77

This estate was created by Mr. and Mrs. Lammot du Pont Copeland whose passion for native plants and naturalistic gardening led them to create the wonderful gardens, meadows, paths and ponds. Today these gardens include over 1900 plant species, varieties and cultivars. You can visit not only in the spring, but in the summer and fall. Contact Mt. Cuba and take a 2 hour tour-by calling for advance reservation. Their spring wildflower tours run from April 15 -May 28.

Helonias bullata by Illingworth

Mt. Cuba also has excellent Continuing Education programs. These inexpensive courses are extremely varied and include such topics as a Native Plant Buying Trip, to Bird Gardening to art and photography classes.