I Went to a Garden Party

Thriving between rows of corn and tomatoes, brilliant yellow sunflowers reach to the sky. Another sunny patch towers over rainbow zinnias, where swallowtails and sulphur butterflies vie with bees for the center of blossoms. In the heat of summer, Hill Girt Farm is buzzing with activity — growing flowers as well as vegetables — to meet demand at SIW Vegetable farm stand and decorate tables at SIW’s Field to Fork Dinners.

If you shop at the SIW farm stand early the week of a Field to Fork Dinner, you just might spy a renowned local chef in casual clothes tasting tomatoes or sampling squash behind the hanging baskets of flowers. The magic begins there as a menu emerges from what’s freshest and ripened to perfection, and later becomes a multistar meal. At the family-style event in the countryside barn, table companions become friends by the time stars dot the sky.

Back in 1982, H.G. Haskell began growing vegetables on the southern Chester County dairy farm bought by his grandfather, H.G. Haskell, Sr., in 1910. While it’s best known today for its vast array of fruit and vegetables, the land also holds horses where cows once enjoyed the pasture, along with pretty cosmos, acres of peonies and sunflowers. The flowers show up at the market from spring to fall to add to whichever seasonal produce shows up on your dinner plate or to make any meal a garden party.

At another farm that’s a hop, skip and a jump from Daisy Point Road in northern Chester County, Clara pulls up in the farm’s Gator utility vehicle with armloads of pink and white ranunculus and other spring stunners in prismatic color. Later in the growing season, the co-owner of Pasture Song Farm holds summery red and yellow sunflowers, and the Gator is loaded with mason jar bouquets of cosmos, dahlias and bouquet dill that looks like brilliant fireworks. She unloads and places them at a pretty little stand already festive with garlands of blazing yellow and orange marigolds and raspberry-red gomphrena (aka globe amaranth) waving in the breeze.

At the farm focused on sustainability that also provides the community with crops and meat, Clara started growing sunflowers, only to discover a growing passion for farming flowers. Now in addition to spring, summer and fall blooms — months after anemones, Icelandic poppies, tulips and purple, pink and blue lupines are gone — she offers winter wreaths of dried pink and blue larkspur, strawflowers, grasses and evergreen to make dark winter days brighter.

While every hour among flowers is a happy hour, Pasture Song hosts literal Flower Happy Hour workshops for arranging seasonal delights. Throughout the region, it’s just one of the farms to offer special events that are the stuff of petal-lovers’ dreams.

Garden Parties Not to Miss

Here are a few of our favorite places from around the Brandywine Valley to spend time during the glorious days of summer. Check websites or call for dates and times for events. And please abide by the rules for each farm.

In every direction, there’s something wonderful.

• SIW’s Field to Fork Dinners, Chadds Ford. Treat yourself to spectacular culinary adventures in the barn that’s down a charming lane often bordered by seasonal flowers. Experience the finest produce and blooms you could hope to find on your table. Get dinner tickets early — the monthly meals sell out quickly. SIWVegetables.com

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  Pasture Song’s Flower Happy Hours, Pottstown. Tour the farm. Snack on locally sourced goodies. Fill a vase while filling your soul. Alongside other friendly folks, create a centerpiece so dazzling in color and floral shapes you’ll wish it lasted forever. PastureSongFarm.com

• Wildflower Farm’s Midday Retreats, Malvern. Rediscover your glow at a midday retreat with a walk through the colorful rows, what’s-in-bloom chat, flower bar for creating arrangements and lunch from Malvern Buttery. Indulge in a special mini-retreat: flower and sound healing with blooms and crystal singing bowls in the barn that’s floor-to-ceiling charm. All with intimate size groups. WildflowerFarmPA.square.site

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  Strawflower Farm’s Cut Flower Painting Classes, Glen Mills. Cut your own bouquet from an enticing array of blooms — veronica, celosia, pink baby’s breath, bachelors’ buttons and more. Then paint it under the guidance of professional art instructor Victoria Batter. Rain? No worries, gatherings are in the greenhouse with Ann the hen, Jack the turkey and alpacas on four acres of peace and pretty skies — as well as your bouquet and painting. StrawflowerFarm.net

• Warwick Furnace Farm Bring-Your-Own Picnics and Contest, Glenmoore. Just when you think combining food and flowers couldn’t get better, owners and artists of a hill crowned with lavender overlooking an idyllic, renovated dairy barn created a contest for the most beautiful picnic food and presentation. Your lavender lemonade, charcuterie boards graced with edible petals, peony panna cotta, rustic baskets and elegant linens are just the beginning. WarwickFurnaceFarm.com
• Mt. Airy Lavender Farm’s Open Houses, Coatesville. Bask in a lavender Adirondack chair in the center of a lavender field. Breathe in the heady aroma. Watch horses in the field or peek into the fairy-tale spring house. Plan a trip back for Sunday yoga. MtAiryLavender.com
• The Farm at Oxford’s Pick-Your-Own-Dahlias Days, Oxford. When the light is golden and the dahlias are glorious in shades of orange sherbet, vivid magenta, pale purple, deep red and sunny yellow, be ready to make a coveted appointment online. Time for cutting dahlias to take home, chatting with a friend, listening to the birds and photographing the red barn behind the field of big, fluffy blooms. Perhaps, make it a date. TheFarmAtOxford.com
• Artful Gardens’ Stroll by Appointment, Kennett Square. Looking for some special moments for a party of two or even one? Call in advance to schedule a quiet place to visit, buy a bunch of blooms or meditate by a tranquil water lily. 610-955-1373
• Create Your Own. Make your yard, deck or tailgate the site of a grand occasion with DIY buckets or half-buckets ordered in advance from Farm and Garden Flowers in Coatesville or the local markets they supply. There’s always something beautiful in season from hellebores to achillea, allium and specialty rudbeckia. FarmAndGardenFlowers.com. Or buy fresh bouquets from Ethel’s Back Yard, now in Westtown at the newly opened farm store (formerly Pete’s Produce) with flowers grown on Farmer Jawn’s land. Look for luxurious ruffled-petal Madame Butterfly snapdragons, lisianthus, anemones and Icelandic poppies with mint and herb greens. EthelsBackYard.com

Take a Drive in October

For an enchanting experience after the midsummer lavender extravaganza and exquisite perennial garden have ended for the season, head to Hope Hill Lavender Farm’s Sound Bath in Pottsville for a sound bath of crystal singing bowls and chimes on the farm, October 26. Drive up the lane past cosmos in shades of pink with a backdrop of fall foliage. Pass the home of wild turkeys, donkeys and a miniature horse named Boone. Arrive at a barn and pavilion where the wind from the valley sings at the top of the hill. After the event, shop for culinary lavender, other food items and nicely curated crafts. Well worth the drive in pretty Pennsylvania. HopeHillLavenderFarm.com