Baltimore's Cylburn Arboretum reopens Saturday with a multi-million-dollar makeover that features a new visitors center, restored gardens and, for the first time ever, parking!
There will be a ribbon-cutting and dedication at 11 a.m. and an afternoon of family and garden activities - plus food - begins at 12:30 p.m.
Closed since the fall of 2008, the post-Civil War Cylburn Mansion will also have composting toilets in its restrooms, geothermal heating and cooling and a newly paved two-lane road to make it easier to enter the 207-acre site from Greenspring Avenue.
But the star of this weekend's show will be the Vollmer Visitor's Center, build into the side of a hill with a "green roof" and interior paneling of natural woods native to Maryland. In addition, a classroom for up to 100 people has been added
Cylburn is a city-owned gem, with 3 1/2 miles of walking trails, but it wasn't very accessible, there was really no place to park and there was no place for visitors to learn about the center and its collection of trees.
That has all been corrected and, in addition to the structural improvements, the gardens at Cylburn have had a major makeover.
Oasis Design Group's new garden master plan for Cylburn included the renovation of the Formal Garden, a new Flowering Shrub Walk, a new vegetable and demonstration garden, a shade garden, a formal promenade, a "wedding" garden with a new pavilion, other smaller connecting gardens.
The improvements are part of a master plan to restore the 31 acres of formal gardens around the mansion consistent with the original garden from the 1870s.