Every year when covering the Georgetown Garden Tour, we have noted a predominant feature among the year’s seven to eight selected gardens. One year it was annual plants, others it was swimming pools, garden living rooms (especially during COVID), kitchens and garden art too. This year the predominant theme in all the garden was grass—rich green grassy lawns, some covering the entire garden area, others in patches around fountains or sections of the garden. Many were lined this year with boldly colored petunias in shades of purple and orange.
Two of the homes this year had swimming pools that were large but appropriately sized within the garden to provide plenty of lounging space. Several of the gardens had water features like wall or stand-alone fountains or small sunken pools. Almost all provided the pleasant sounds of falling or spouting water.
-Peggy Sands
3415 Volta Place NW., a home on the Georgetown Garden Tour. Photo by Dina Gold.
Walking along the brick covered pathway leading into the garden of 3415 Volta Place, one is immediately struck by two eye-catching trees with silvery-blue needles and cascading branches. Cedrus atlantica ‘Glauca Pendula’ – otherwise known as Weeping Blue Atlas cedars – flank the charming porched entrance to the house. Ahead is a long grassy lawn at the end of which stands an exotic red pergola with Chinese lattice work.
Fuchsia, star jasmine, lemon balm, hostas, assorted herbs and hydrangeas adorn the well-stocked garden. Turning left at the end is a wonderful surprise. Tucked at the back of the house, and overlooked only by the glass conservatory, is a delightful swimming pool. Surrounded by a high-walled garden, tall lush foliage like bamboo, tulip magnolia, swamp white oak, crabapple, holly and colorful potted plants, it is a veritable haven of tranquility.
Pools were often featured on this year’s Garden Tour, like this one at 3415 Volta Pl. NW. Photo by Dina Gold.
The current owners of 3333 P Street redesigned and installed a new landscape in 2007, and it has since matured into a sumptuous estate garden with parterre (a formal garden layout consisting of symmetrical, low-hedged plant beds, filled with flowers or colored gravel) and a swimming pool to dream of.
A verdant lawn is dissected from one side to the other by an intricately laid out parterre containing geraniums, lilies, irises, Bishop’s weed, gentian sage, ferns, peonies and a host of other beauties which would not look out of place in an English country manor.
Keep walking and you reach the far end of the property where, stretching across the entire width of the garden, lies a secluded pool. A statue of an eagle stands atop a horizontal waterfall fountain in the middle of the wall, and the entire pool is bordered by densely growing trees, including black walnut, Foster’s holly, Sweetbay magnolias, fig, witch-hazel and American elm.
What these owners have achieved, and there is no other way to describe it, is simply “breathtaking.”
-Dina Gold
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