Discover the treasures in your own backyard on this admission-free day at Winterthur! Get outside and explore the garden, take a hayride over the hills, or learn something new in our galleries. Enjoy live music and activities around the estate such as crafting, garden hikes, and story time. Together with our community partners, Winterthur offers fun for all, inside and out! Join us free of charge all day.

We are offering a sensory-friendly hour from 9:00 to 10:00 am in the Brown Horticulture Learning Center those who wish to explore independently at their own pace. Guests can expect reduced crowds and noise at that time, with quiet spaces for respite and on-hand support from skilled and friendly volunteers.

Please be aware that parking is limited, and we expect a large turnout early in the day. Please visit any time but consider arriving later. You will have plenty of time to enjoy all Winterthur has to offer.

Register now.

Visitor Center

  • Meet at the Visitor Center patio for the 11:00 am Garden Walk and visit garden areas not seen from the tram route.
  • Join New Directions Early Head Start to learn about the colors in nature and go on a colorful photo scavenger hunt. You can have your picture taken and receive a printed photo to take home.
  • Come play with your child and learn how games and activities stimulate their development with Books, Balls & Blocks. Skill-building activities in stations focus on communication and language, cognition and problem solving, gross and fine motor skills, and literacy.
  • Visit the team from Hagley Museum and Library as they demonstrate the history of irons from their patent model collection, then get tips and clues as you figure out where each iron fits in the historical timeline.   
  • Join the Newark Ukesters from 11:00 am–2:00 pm for an interactive and fun time as they perform classics and fan favorites on the patio.

Greenhouses & Brown Horticulture Learning Center

  • Explore the Head House and take a glimpse back in time to one of the areas on the estate that evokes H. F. du Pont’s passion for gardening and flowers.
  • Learn which vegetables can be seeded for the fall season at home and see demonstrations of seeding and transplanting vegetables into containers from the Food Bank of Delaware. Take home free seeding supplies to use your new skills and try at home. 
  • Humane Animal Partners (HAP) will be on site with adoptable pups! Stop by their table to learn more about their adoption services, low-cost wellness and vaccine clinics, or volunteer opportunities like Doggy Day Out.
  • Join the Winterthur Delaware Master Naturalist group for “The Wonderful World of Fungi.” Enjoy activities and crafts and learn fun facts about the mighty mushroom and its cousins.
  • Decorate your own terra cotta pots with garden-inspired designs.
  • Plant a seed in your custom terra cotta pot and learn how to care for it.
  • Label your soon-to-be flower or vegetable by making your own wooden garden marker.

 

Galleries Reception Area

  • Transformations: Contemporary Artists at Winterthur exhibition features more than thirty nationally recognized artists whose work draws inspiration from the historic collections of the museum, garden, and library. Explore the online exhibition now to see current and past works. Then visit the Galleries during your visit to experience more, in person. Join a Gallery Walk every 30 minutes from 9:00 am–4:00 pm.
  • Enjoy a performance by the Tower Hill Chamber Ensemble, comprised of advanced players from the Tower Hill School Orchestra. Performance time to be determined.
  • Discover dance at Winterthur! Join The Wilmington Ballet and M. Amber Spivey of I.AM.Art N Motion for a performance in the Galleries from 12:00–12:30 pm. Afterwards, join them as they lead a demonstration at the Maypole in Enchanted Woods, 1:30–2:30 pm.
  • In celebration of the birthday of Marian Coffin, one of the first American female landscape architects and lifelong friend of Henry Francis du Pont, listen to a reading of the play April Garden, written by Donna Kaz, playwright and recent Winterthur Maker-Creator fellow, and performed by local actors at 1:00 pm in the Rotunda. Be sure to stroll through the Sundial Garden (formerly the April Garden), which was Coffin and du Pont’s final project together at Winterthur.
  • Stop by the People to People Delaware table to pick up a free peace sticker and play their global kids’ game to win a prize!
  • Visit full-scale and child-sized reproductions of a workbench from Winterthur’s With Hammer in Hand exhibit.  Try some of the tools that were used to flatten, smooth, and shave wood in an 18th-century cabinet shop.
  • Hello Loom! Learn the basics of weaving on a simple loom that can fit in your hands and go with you. 

Library

  • Stop by the Winterthur Library from 10:00 am–2:00 pm for drop-in activities. Explore toys and games from the past, read a storybook, or make your own colorful bookmark.
  • Hayrides will depart from the east side of the Galleries (next to the library) every 30 minutes, 10:00 am–3:00 pm.

Enchanted Woods

  • Follow a storybook trail as you read Over in the Forest: Come and Take a Peek by Marianne Berkes.
  • Learn about Read Aloud Delaware’s Volunteer Reading Program and LENA Start—a free program designed to guide parents of newborns to 3-year-olds as they prepare their child for kindergarten. Enjoy a giveaway of new and gently used books for children and join Pete the Cat for a storybook reading at 11:30 am.
  • Enjoy a performance by The Rainbow Chorale of Delaware, a non-auditioned LGBTQ+ and allies community chorus as they sing songs of affirmation from 12:00–12:45 pm.
  • Discover dance at Winterthur! Join The Wilmington Ballet and M. Amber Spivey of I.AM.Art N Motion as they lead a demonstration at the Maypole in Enchanted Woods from 1:30–2:30 pm.
  • Get your face painted, inspired by the garden. 
  • Combine paper, glue, and sticks to make miniature tree houses.
  • Press and preserve a leaf from the day to make it into a memento.

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