Back in February, the Old Greenbelt Gardening Boosters announced its formation and a roster of projects to help Greenbelters garden. Most are on hold indefinitely but one project – organizing an Old Greenbelt Garden Tour – has simply gone virtual!

What are Old Greenbelt Virtual Garden Tours?

• The “tours” will of course be online, consisting of photos, videos and commentary by gardeners in Old Greenbelt. But lucky for us locals, some of the gardens will be viewable from public space – like sidewalks. Others will be open to visitors IN the garden, per arrangements with the gardener via email.
• There will be spring, summer and fall “tours.” Grouped by season, with captions identifying flowering plants, they’ll give local gardeners lots of ideas.
• Gardens on tour will be both “victory” gardens of edibles AND ornamental gardens (which we know serve environmental purposes, too, not just aesthetics).

Contribute your garden photos or videos

• Send 1-5 photos or a video of your garden as it looked this spring (March-May). Photos taken in previous springs of the same plants or garden spaces are fine. It’s your choice whether or not to make your address known for viewing from public space and/or allow in-person visits arranged by email.)
• Photo size? 1,000 pixels wide is preferred (that’s the full display width on this website).
• Include whatever comments you’d like about the garden and/or the plants in the photo AND what you’ve done in the garden in 2020. Also, has your gardening been affected by the pandemic? And what role has gardening played in your life under the shutdown? These are suggestions – the comments are up to you.
• For the SPRING tour, please send photos or videos to editor@greenbeltonline.org by June 1 for publication and promotion by June 7. Photos received later will, however, be added to the spring tour collection.
• For the SUMMER TOUR, send us photos taken June-August, either this year or in previous years if they’re still representative of how your garden looks in 2020.
• For the FALL TOUR, send us photos taken September-November.

NOTE: The Virtual Garden Tour pages, including all the photos and comments, will be part of our growing compilation of stories about Greenbelters during the pandemic and ultimately archived by the Greenbelt Museum for posterity.