Get your spring on early. If you love springtime, pick a day in April and head to Washington, D.C. If it’s not quite spring here in the Susquehanna Valley, you’ll arrive just in time for a perfect spring day in D.C. Make an evening of it with a concert at the Kennedy Center, and walk down for a drink at sunset at the new Washington Harbor. Add a night or two at the historic Mayflower Hotel, very handy to a Metro station.
Check out the cherry blossoms, the high-energy vibe of the Mall, the wonder of the National Cathedral and, of course, the museums and monuments. We also recommend that you save an afternoon for Georgetown. There, you’ll find not only shops and eateries that will tempt you to pull out your credit card, and architecture that makes you reach for your camera, but also a less-well-known gem called Dumbarton Oaks.
Put aside for a minute that in the estate’s Music Room, the United Nations charter was formulated. Ignore for a moment the ensconced museum with its Pre-Columbian and Byzantine artifacts and the prestige of its Harvard connection. Forget that the Potomac River is just over the hill, and give your whole afternoon up to gorgeous garden scenery.
In this sanctuary, if you time it right, you can feast your eyes on a spectacular display of forsythia, a whole blazing yellow acre of it. Crabapple trees wearing their spring costumes and showy magnolias draw you through the various garden rooms, each with their horticultural specialties. Options include the docent-led tour or the self-guided tour, but try just wandering down a random path and being surprised. It’s good for the soul.
Changing Seasons at their Best
Asked when the garden is at its best, Gail Griffin, the garden’s director, says, “That really depends on what interests you.” She says for the rose garden you’d want to go in May, the flower borders get to be 15 feet high by summer, and asters and chrysanthemums make quite the appearance in the fall. In early spring, the former Bird Walk turns blue with crocuses, giving way a week or so later to flowering plum trees with a scattering of bishop’s hat blossoms at your feet.
Take a picnic, or a book, and relax on one of the benches. Your only problem then would be deciding which has the best view. The Italian Garden bench, the Kidney bench and the royal-looking Herbaceous Border bench are just a few of your options. There are lots of places to sit, if rest is what you’re after. And these days, who doesn’t crave that?
“I think we need the serenity this garden offers,” says Griffin. “It’s an extraordinary garden, and there’s a sense of harmony here.” She likens the design to “good bones,” and feels like the patron “created a good model and now we get to dress it.”
Talk to any of the gardeners there (there’s a full-time staff of 13, plus at least 50 volunteers); they all love it because it’s constantly changing. It’s likely one of the most beautiful work environments you’ve ever seen, with its cascading hillsides, scenically aged buildings and more natural wonder in the form of a large public park just beyond the gates.
Deeply Contemplated Design
The original gardens were created by renowned designer Beatrix Farrand in collaboration with one of the estate's owners, Mildred Barnes Bliss. She and husband Robert Woods Bliss purchased the estate in 1920 (it’s their initials you see scrolled in wrought iron here and there). Since Woods Bliss was a diplomat, Barnes Bliss and Farrand corresponded over 10 years, sending illustrations and ideas back and forth from posts in Argentina and Sweden. Farrand would create life-sized cardboard mock-ups of gates and such, set them in the garden and photograph them so that Barnes Bliss could get the full effect. The result is a garden lover’s dream.
It’s no wonder Dumbarton Oaks was on Hillary Clinton’s agenda when she took Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, for a tour of D.C. Harvard professors regularly give talks here, ranging from the “Cultural Landscape Heritage in Sub-Saharan Africa” symposium to “The Future of Mud,” which is more compelling than it sounds (the property was transferred to Harvard University, Woods Bliss’ alma mater, in more recent years). Other special events, like the occasional concert, motivate the staff to dress up the trees by the museum with white lights.
The travertine and glass museum was designed by Philip Johnson, winner of the Pritzker Architectural Prize, and you can see one reason he won. Floor-to-ceiling glass melds with the Star Garden, removing the visual inside-outside barrier between art and foliage. It’s extraordinary. The gift shop is another good destination, offering anything from fair-trade crafts to jewelry to books on the garden itself.
A Feast for the Eyes
But what you really want to see when you come here is the wisteria. It drapes over stone walls, frames doorways and surrounds the fountains in the Pebble Garden, with its curving stone pattern. Your first glimpse is nothing short of riveting. This is where,
if you’ve been able to resist so far, your camera
comes out.
When you can finally tear yourself away from this view, stroll a bit more, past the Ellipse, where a tall clipped hedge of hornbeam encircles another fountain. Take a right, past the blossoms on Cherry Hill, and you’ll encounter Lilac Circle. If you stick to the woodland path, you’ll end up at Lover’s Lane Pool, and from there you’ll find the Fountain and Arbor Terraces.
There, an art installation, called simply “The Cloud,” was slated to be taken down in 2013, but the staff couldn’t quite get themselves to remove it as scheduled. Studded with 10,000 Swarovski crystals, this contemporary artwork shimmers in a reflecting pool. If they can convince themselves to replace it, there will likely be another original outdoor piece on the grounds to explore.
As you make your way around the various garden rooms, you can’t help but notice the ornamentation here, which Griffin calls “incredible.” Pepper pots, urns, columns, railings, fountains and elaborate gates, each one uniquely designed for this garden, turn every spot into a scenic photo opportunity. If you’re there in early spring, look for the frittelaria along the far bend of the Ribbon Walk, and keep an eye out for bunnies.
After you’ve discovered the garden’s wonders, head around the corner, where Georgetown’s many restaurants await. Good luck choosing; at last count, there were 140 of them.
If You Go :
www.doaks.org Admission: gardens, $8; museum, free Street parking is free, but remember to move your car every two hours. www.georgetowndc.com/explore/dining
Written and photographed by Cindy Kalinoski