The Cape Cod Hydrangea Festival is returning on Friday, July 10, opening the gates to nearly 100 private and public gardens across all 15 Cape towns while raising thousands of dollars for local nonprofit organizations. Over a span of 10 days, visitors can tour colorful landscapes, attend gardening workshops and demonstrations, and celebrate one of the Cape’s signature summer traditions.
Organized annually by the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce, the festival also features lectures, hydrangea care classes, nursery promotions and live en plein air painting demonstrations by local artists.
This year’s festival will run through Sunday, July 19. Most garden tours cost $5, though some gardens and special events might charge more. Children 12 years old and younger will be admitted free. Because gardens are open on different days, visitors are encouraged to plan ahead using the schedule on the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce website, capecodchamber.org/events/cape-cod-hydrangea-fest. The website has a digital flyer listing all the days of the festival with the participating gardens, broken down by day and town.
The festival traces its roots to a conversation between close friends C.L. Fornari and Marcai Chapman as they were driving home from a gardening seminar.
Chapman still remembers Fornari saying to her, “You know what the Cape needs? A hydrangea festival.” Chapman recalled laughing and responding, “Do we really?” But Fornari was serious. She proposed the idea to the Chamber in 2015, ultimately bringing the event to life.
Inspired by Garden Walk Buffalo, where residents open their private gardens for self-guided tours, Fornari envisioned a similar event on Cape Cod—one that would also raise money for local nonprofits.
Her friend Chapman said, “Although she was inspired by Garden Walk Buffalo, she adapted it, because she has such a good heart, to also raise money for nonprofits at very little cost to visitors.”
In Falmouth alone, the festival is raising money for seven nonprofits: Falmouth Art Center, Master Gardeners, Falmouth Garden Club, Cape Cod Hydrangea Society, West Falmouth Library, Belonging to Each Other and Resilient Roots.
The signature flower behind the festival was never in question. As Fornari said, her vision was always clear.
“The big blue-leaf hydrangea is Cape Cod’s signature plant, because we have all the conditions these plants do well in,” she said.
But the event goes far beyond hydrangeas; it includes a wide array of pollinators, tropical themes, traditional and unusual plantings, all across the region.
“I wanted it to be Cape-wide, 10 days long, and to bring people from all over the country. Because I knew it had the potential to do that, but only if we got the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce involved,” Fornari said.
She said the hydrangeas struggled during the first festival because of a harsh winter. Even so, “It was still viewed as a success because that year it brought in just over $25,000 for local nonprofits,” she said.
Since the festival began, Greta Georgieva, 40, of Centerville has helped organize it. As special events coordinator for the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce, she said this year’s festival will feature about 95 to 100 gardens, with 35 participating nonprofits.
Georgieva said the festival now typically generates between $80,000 and $100,000 each year.
“We have people who come to the festival from New Zealand, so they can come to escape their winter and tour Cape Cod. We have people from many parts of the world come to the festival, and it’s such a good thing for our businesses and nonprofits,” Fornari said.
For Georgieva, planning for the festival never really stops. As soon as one festival ends, she said, preparations begin for the next, from securing sponsors and coordinating participants to marketing the event months in advance.
Residents who open their gardens spend months preparing as well. Behind every tour are countless hours of pruning, planting and maintenance.
Fornari refers to her 2½-acre property in Sandwich as “Poison Ivy Acres.”
She said, “I walk out my front door to pick vegetables. My favorite time of year is when I can go into my garden at 5 o’clock and say, ‘What’s for dinner?’”
Fornari’s garden is open to the public during the festival. She said she intends to continue sharing it in support of local nonprofits.
“I love it when people bring kids, and I like introducing people to new plants and things. It’s fun to share it with people,” Fornari said.
Chapman’s Falmouth garden is, she said, something of a fairytale.
“We have a lot of birds that nest in our evergreens, which is very pleasing. We also have bunnies, and gardeners and bunnies are not a great combination, so good thing they are cute,” she said.
She added that the moment she steps outside, “It’s like a Disney movie.”
If her garden were a person, Chapman said, she would describe it as “high maintenance. Attractive, most of the time, and sometimes difficult.”
She and her husband, George Chapman, are horticulturalists. “It’s our idea of a good time,” she said, “to go out and play in the yard with dirty fingernails.”
Her husband looks forward to seeing how many visitors come through the garden. Chapman, however, said it is the conversations that she treasures most.
“I’m always learning more. That’s the part I like the most: the learning and experimenting,” she said.
Fornari has also found lessons in the garden.
“One thing that gardening teaches us is flexibility. If you’re willing to listen, it tells you to be flexible. And I think that is good advice for life as well,” she said.
Though each gardener has learned different lessons, both Fornari and Chapman agreed their gardens are always works in progress. Preparing for the festival, they said, is simply an extension of their everyday routines.
“Somebody is always asking to bring a friend, saying that they would love to see our garden. So, we put the hoses away and polished it up a bit,” Chapman said.
The two also agree that opening their gardens creates opportunities to connect with fellow gardening enthusiasts.
“People can get ideas for what to do in their gardens and become inspired,” Fornari said.
Chapman agrees. “Plant people like to talk to other plant people. I love to have plant people over. They’re my people, the plant people,” she said.
Falmouth resident Esther Johnston is also taking part in the festival this year. This is her second festival. Johnston said she discovered her love of gardening in retirement, and after moving to Cape Cod from Connecticut, she began taking it more seriously.
“I love doing it. When I’m outside working in the gardens, I don’t think about anything else. It’s like a form of meditation, in a way,” Johnston said.
When asked whether she makes any special preparations before the festival, Johnston said, “I’m working on it all the time. And, you know, it’s never done. It’s never perfect because that’s the thing about gardening, you know, things happen.”
Johnston said anything that helps people learn more while promoting the Cape is worthwhile, adding, “One of the most rewarding things I think you can do is to grow something.”
Because she expects this to be her final year hosting a garden tour, she encourages people to come visit.
With so many participants and gardens to explore, the festival continues to grow, and Fornari hopes it becomes even larger.
“I know that Garden Walk Buffalo has been going for at least 35 years, and it has spawned into other garden tours. I can see this event continuing to grow; I would love to see, in another 10 years, 250 gardens open, or even 300,” she said.
Georgieva said there is simply not enough time to see everything. With so many gardens to tour and events to attend, she encourages visitors to plan ahead to make the most of the festival.
Whether people come for gardening inspiration, photography, drawing or simply an afternoon wandering through beautiful landscapes, Georgieva said, the festival is ultimately about welcoming people in.
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