House & Garden Tour in Brookland, Washington, DC

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I just came back from my 2 week vacation/visit to my sister and her family, who live in Washington, DC. My visit happened to coincide with their neighborhood’s annual House and Garden Tour, which raises money for the Brookland Garden Club. So Ana (my sister) and I decided to go and take a look, at only $10 a ticket, it really wasn’t expensive. Brookland is a neighborhood of older houses, many built in the 40s and 50s, some are Sears mail order houses, others are Craftmans and there are even some Victorians. I love older houses and it was fun to see what the owners had done with them, as well as the gardens. As you can imagine, many of these houses have been renovated. Anyway, here is a sampling of what we saw on June 5:

I would have never thought these cacti would bloom in Washington’s humidity:

I love this house, both the shape and the color…too bad it was not one of the ones open to the public:

I also loved these pale pink daylilies in the renovated garden of another house:

And the dark red ones:

These gorgeous yellow/peach calla lilies growing at another house:

Here my sister (in pink) speaks with the homeowner about the fruit trees she has planted in her (tiny!) garden:

This same homeowner also had gorgeous pink and purple (blue) hydrangeas:

As well as a front garden that attracted butterflies:

This house was a Sears & Roebuck mail-order house:

The owners, transplants from Ohio, offered lemonade with vodka or Jack Daniels, in addition to fruit-infused water and regular lemonade to the tour attendees:

Their garden was my favorite, especially their vegetable garden, which was huge!

I had no idea the big fuzzy flowers were flowering onions…I just love how they looked!!

They even had a pond:

I guess I should have put this photo first, here I am, ready to go on the afternoon of the tour:

We came back tired but happy, with lots of ideas!!

• 22 Jun, 2011
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