Prints of “Matters of Scale,” a painting by Catherine Venable commemorating Petersburg Garden Day and the Gillette exhibition, will be for sale at the Petersburg Public Library on April 26 for $20 unsigned, $30 signed. Proceeds from the sale of the prints help support Petersburg Garden Club’s efforts to support green public spaces in the city of Petersburg. (Image courtesy Petersburg Garden Club)
Just 24 miles south on Interstate 95, the city of Petersburg is home to a treasure trove of historic architectural gems — from private residences to commercial buildings and museums — and private and public gardens, a number of which were designed by noted landscape architect Charles F. Gillette.
The Petersburg Garden Club will roll out the red carpet to the city’s historic Old Towne city center with one of its biggest tours in recent memory, according to Jo Anne Davis, a co-chair of the Petersburg tour. The walking/driving tour features seven properties: four private homes and gardens, a woodland garden, Centre Hill Museum and Historic Battersea, and as an added bonus Petersburg Garden Day ticket holders can preview “Matters of Scale: Charles F. Gillette in Petersburg,” a new exhibition celebrating Charles F. Gillette’s work in Petersburg that will open to the public on Wednesday, April 27.
The tour is planned with minimal driving required, Davis says. “We have four homes in the Poplar Lawn district on the tour, all within walking distance of each other.” The homes, located on Marshall and South Jefferson Streets in the Poplar Lawn Historic District, will be open for both house and garden tours. The homes on view — Greek Revival, Federal and Italianate in architectural style — have all preserved original architectural elements and interiors filled with with unique collections, art and antiques. The Poplar Lawn District, which was developed around Poplar Lawn Park as a fashionable residential neighborhood in the 19th century, is a National Historic Landmark and is listed on the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places.
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Historic Battersea is among the homes on the Petersburg Garden Day tour. (Photo courtesy the Battersea Foundation)
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A home at 133 Marshall St. in Petersburg on the tour (Photo by Jo Anne Davis)
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A home at 221 S. Jefferson St. in Petersburg on the tour (Photo by Jo Anne Davis)
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A Petersburg garden on the tour (Photo by Jo Anne Davis)
You might want to wear your walking shoes, Davis suggests, as the tour continues at nearby Centre Hill Mansion, a circa 1823 Federal style home, now a museum of decorative arts and furnishings. Take time out for complimentary tea and cookies, served there throughout the day. Or find greater sustenance at Second Presbyterian Church, where the Cockade City Garden Club is hosting an ongoing luncheon and fashion show between 11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m.
The gardens at Centre Hill Mansion, which include hypericum, plum yew, Blackhawk viburnum, tulip poplar, laurels and weigela, were restored by the Garden Club of Virginia in a project dating back to 1980. “Historic properties like Centre Hill are the main reason we do this,” Davis says. “The revenue from all of the Garden Week tours across the state goes to the preservation of historic public gardens and landscapes and [to] fund a fellowship program in landscape architecture.”
Then head on to the Petersburg Library to view the Gillette exhibition, followed by a visit to Historic Battersea to tour the recently renovated areas of the 18th-century Palladian-style home and orangerie. To minimize the need for driving, the tour will offer shuttle buses between the library and Historic Battersea.
Last but not least on the tour is a woodland garden in the Walnut Hill area, which will require driving to visit. The hidden garden features 50 different kinds of Japanese maple trees, camellias, ferns, wild ginger, black bamboo, different kinds of dogwoods and a huge koi pond in the middle of the garden with two different waterfalls. “It’s not going to be a lot of flowers. It’s flowering trees and shrubs. It’s definitely worth a visit over there,” Davis says. “The paths meander, they’re uneven ground, so we recommend wearing walking shoes.”
For information and tickets, visit vagardenweek.org.
