Colonial Williamsburg

I finally got to go back.  We last visited Williamsburg when our son was in Cub Scouts, and he'll be 29 this August, sooo -- it's been awhile.  I'm really thankful we were able to use my mom's timeshare points to stay at a nice resort, within walking distance of the historic area of Williamsburg.  Thanks again Mom!!   

   I'm going to feature just the gardens in this post.  I so loved these colonial gardens; they really appeal to my love of symmetry.   

   You can't see them in these pictures, but there are little Violas mixed in with these taller orange flowers.  This garden was adjacent to the Raleigh Bakery, where we grabbed some lunch on our first full day there.      

  

   This was the next little garden we encountered while walking through the historic area.  These irises in the foreground are my absolute favorite color of iris.  I think they look especially old-fashioned for some reason.  One of the most prolific flowers in Colonial Williamsburg at the time we were there was foxgloves; they were beautiful and they were everywhere.  😃  We missed the tulips apparently.   

      

   The next garden we saw had these cloches protecting some new plants.  I felt like this was some sort of educational, community garden because there were several people walking around in here and discussing the plants.   

   Hal captured an image of these great cold frames in the garden.  We saved all our original windows when we had replacement windows installed a few years ago, thinking we'd use them for something like this.  

   Almost every garden we saw had pathways lined with white, like this one.  The white stuff turned out to be crushed oyster shells.  They looked really good!  Williamsburg is not far from the ocean, so I imagine these are in pretty good supply around there.   

   Cheerful poppies!   

   This is not the best picture, but I wanted to point out these flowers -- they're bluebells.  I'm pretty sure they're not real English bluebells, since it's illegal for them to be taken out of the country there.  Anyway, these are exactly like the bluebells that were planted at our house in Greensboro.  They were already there when we moved in, and I really wish I had dug some up to bring here with us.  There is such a thing as Virginia bluebells, but these look like Spanish bluebells.  Aren't they pretty?    

   Next we saw this charming cottage garden.  It has brick walkways rather than the crushed oyster shells.  I love the brick, too.   This garden had a nice variety of flowers.  You can see more foxgloves, as well as cottage pinks (dianthus), phlox, and gladiolus.   

  

   This is the other end of the garden.     

    We visited this next garden on our last morning in Williamsburg.  I'm so glad we spotted it, because it was my favorite of all.  There were old-fashioned roses growing along the picket fence (above)   

   and all the cottage garden flowers you could want growing along the inside of the fence.   

        This was my idea of a perfect garden.  The raised beds contained a mix of vegetables, herbs, and more flowers.  Everything in the raised beds was labeled for easy identification.  Best of all, this garden was as neat as a pin.  😍  Also, notice the white "shed" with the peaked roof and latticed sides.  Williamsburg was full of these little charmers.       

   Do you see these tiny blue flowers at the bottom of this picture?  They're forget-me-nots, and they are the sweetest little flowers.  I don't think I've seen any up close and in person since we were in England 20 years ago.  It was worth visiting the garden for this alone.  Next to the forget-me-nots are some little Johnny Jump-ups (Violas) another old-fashioned favorite.   

  

   

Bright pink Dianthus,

  

  

Pretty Shasta Daisies on the right here.

  

  

On the other side of the garden were these dainty Columbines.

  

  

I got a new camera in 2018, and I thoroughly enjoy using it.

  

     

 

Phlox
 
These last pictures are some macro shots that Hal took; he's much better at those than I am.
 

Spiderwort

Violas
 

Foxgloves
 

Feverfew
 

Larkspur
 

Dianthus

 We were allowed to walk through these residential gardens at our leisure because we had purchased three-day tickets for the Williamsburg tours.  The tickets got us into all the main buildings like the Governor's Palace, the Capitol, the trade shops, and the DeWitt Wallace Museum, as well as the various gardens.

If you're still reading after all the flower shots, thank you for sticking with me.  Part of the reason I blog is so I can share with other readers but also to have a record of our everyday lives here, and part of that includes travel.  I'm joining the other ladies at Susan's place, Between Naps on the Porch, for Metamorphosis Monday.  

Thanks so much for your visit and have a great week!!

Blessings,