The Walled Garden below Biltmore House features pattern beds
overflowing
with more than 50,000 Dutch tulips each spring.
[Copyright 2007 The Biltmore Company, all rights reserved]
Biltmore’s Festival of Flowers celebrates its 26th year from April 2 to May 15. The estate-wide event celebrates the beauty of George Vanderbilt’s 8,000-acre property and its original design by Frederick Law Olmsted, father of American landscape architecture. Biltmore’s gardens, Olmsted’s final and most grand project, are in their 121st year, and continue to mature and become more beautiful as time passes.
A meadow of white, purple, pink, yellow and red tulips will
welcome guests at the estate’s entrance. [Copyright 2007 The Biltmore Company, all rights reserved]
Tulips in the Walled Garden will shine in hues of purple, orange, yellow and white. Mid-festival will feature lavender shades of alyssum, orange snapdragons, poppies, dianthus and digitalis for a rainbow-colored finish in the Walled Garden.
Children are enchanted by the sea of tulips that bloom in the Walled Garden each spring. [ Copyright 2007 The Biltmore Company, all rights reserved]
The Vanderbilts’ world travels inspire the festival’s theme this year, with elements referencing their journeys amid floral displays and other decorative elements throughout Biltmore House and the estate. The Conservatory below the Walled Garden will feature travel crates labeled "Biltmore/Vanderbilt" mixed in among the plants and flowers that thrive there. Potted plants arranged in the shape of a compass will surround the center fountain in the Winter Garden in Biltmore House.
The Italian Garden is one of a series of outdoor "rooms" Landscape Architect
Frederick Law Olmsted designed in the formal gardens surrounding Biltmore House. [Copyright 2007 The Biltmore Company, all rights reserved]
Additional Festival of Flowers activities will include live music daily in the Conservatory and Winter Garden; an "Ask a Gardener" station featuring Biltmore’s horticulture experts answering guest questions; and an art show at Deerpark. Daily seminars will be held in A Gardener’s Place in the Conservatory: "Culinary Herbs and Edible Flowers," 1 p.m.; "A Pot for Every Plant," 2 p.m.; and "Celebrate Spring with Wreaths," 3 p.m.
Sometime around May each year, Biltmore's vast collection of azaleas burst into bloom. [Copyright 2007 The Biltmore Company, all rights reserved]
Festival of Flowers coincides with the estate’s annual Easter Egg Hunt on Easter Sunday, April 24, on the front lawn of Biltmore House. Hunts will be at 11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. Registration begins two hours before each hunt, and closes 15 minutes before each hunt. Enjoy children’s music and stories, magic shows, games and take photos with the Easter Rabbit. Activities at Antler Hill Village will include music at the Barn, on the Village Green and a Grape Stomp at the Winery from 2 to 5 p.m. For more information, please visitwww.biltmore.com.
