December Sunday Funday

Sunday December 1 was the first Sunday of the month, so it was SUNDAY FUNDAY at Ormiston.  The activity for the day was to decorate the outdoor XMAS tree in the alphabet garden.   Then we went inside to make ornaments to take home.  The choices were paper angels, candy cane mice, puzzle wreaths, rotating snowmen, or bejeweled Christmas trees. Next week the after school children at Cecil B Moore Library will be repeating the activity in the library.

The X-mas tree, a white spruce in our garden.

The ornaments that we made.

November Sunday Funday

Sunday, November 3 was our first Sunday Funday for the 2024-2025 garden year. We read a book called Eating the Alphabet: Fruits & Vegetables from A to Z. Our outdoor activity involved walking through our alphabet garden to look for end of year vegetables lingering in the garden... a few tomatoes, a few tiny potatoes a pepper, a lone eggplant, some malabar spinach, beans, black-eyed peas and a popular little vegetable called a Mexican gherkin - a vegetable that looks like a tiny watermelon but tastes like a lime-infused cucumber. We also looked for seeds in a pumpkin and planted the pumpkin to see if we get a pumpkin plant next spring, Inside, we had fun sorting a big collection of vegetables donated by Whole Foods. Then we ate some yummy vegetable soup. Whole Foods Market donated so many vegetables that we donated several big boxes to the Philly House Homeless Shelter. Thank you to Whole Foods Market for being such a good neighbor!

Garden Chair Claire Passantino enjoying some soup

Garden Committee

The newly formed garden committee has gardeners, workers, parents, reading teachers, science teachers, outdoor educators, history buffs, and other community members who are helping us design our "Sunday Fundays." Each Sunday will have a featured story book and related indoor and outdoor activities. In addition. there will be some repeating activities like puzzles, house tours, handbells, lawn games, making bouquets. Most garden committee meetings will be zoom meetings where planning takes place. So let us know if you want to attend our zoom meetings to share your good ideas! Upcoming meetings will be held on Thursday October 24 and November 21. Meetings will resume in January 2025 on the third Thursday of the month.

New Mission Statement

In 2018, members of the Royal Heritage Society and garden volunteers started an alphabet garden on the grounds of Ormiston Mansion in East Fairmount Park.  Since then, the garden has become a pleasant venue for RHS events, and we have been working to make it a community resource for Philadelphia.  This year, RHS has adopted a new mission statement and strategic plan to focus on both the mansion AND the gardens.  

Specifically, the Royal Heritage Society's (RHS) new stated mission is “to preserve Pennsylvania's British Heritage and make a contribution to the City of Philadelphia by preserving and maintaining Ormiston Mansion and its Gardens in East Fairmount Park. RHS delivers on this mission by raising funds to maintain the Ormiston Mansion in its original form; by making it available to visiting Royals from the United Kingdom, dignitaries, and visitors; and by holding events, community activities and outreach programs for the citizens of Philadelphia and residents of the Delaware Valley, and other visitors.”

                                                                      (Adopted by the RHS Board on Sept 17, 2024)

My Philly Park Volunteers

We are proud of the way our Ormiston gardens have progressed over the past five years.   A rough count of the number of volunteers who have helped in the garden is 84, and that does not include help from casual passersby or organized groups of garden volunteers who come once or twice a year from Power Corps and the My Phillly Park Volunteer programs.  These volunteers come for several hours in groups of 15-20 hard workers who seed, weed, plant, transplant, mulch, prune, rake, make new beds, edge the garden and offer helpful advice about garden maintenance.

Power Corps has been especially helpful in providing helpers who come to Ormiston on extra days to make up their required hours. Several members of their group stopped back to help us lay a new drip irrigation system in the garden.  Watering has been a challenge this year with the drought conditions.

The latest big group of volunteers were My Philly Park volunteers from Robert Half, Inc, who came to Ormiston on May 31.   Ed Duenas and Joe Soprani from My Philly Park provided us with this nifty little video, so you can see what happens when these larger groups get to work.  Thank you, thank you, one and all.

Progress in the Pastel Garden

Have you been to the Alphabet Garden lately?

On March 28, Power Corps sent a crew of 12 to help us with spring cleanup. Then we were ready to start placing the pastel logs that were donated to us by Bill and Kris Schaffer. They were the creators of the “Eye Candy” exhibit at this year’s Flower Show in Philadelphia.

On Sunday, April 2, the work continued with our garden volunteers and three Polish neighbors of Claire’s, including Nadia, age 11, who currently attends an International School in Austria. She is fluent in three languages: Polish, German, and English. Her favorite subject is art, but outside of school her favorite pastime is TikTok.

Nadia began by taking a walk on the Boxer Trail. Then, after helping move logs, she volunteered to come back the next day and help Claire finish painting this year’s alphabet letters, a project begun by parents and children who take part in our outdoor education program at Ormiston.

In the meantime, our house manager Rob focused on getting us a watering system to actually GROW something in the garden. On April 7, he and four other Power Corps volunteers spent the afternoon digging trenches and laying hoses – first steps toward our new drip irrigation system.

Visit us in the garden and we’ll find ways for you to help us with our flowers and vegetables. Just ask!

The Pastel Logs

This year, the Philadelphia Flower Show had an exhibit called “Eye Candy” featuring floral designs created by Bill and Kristine Schaffer of Schaffer Designs.

After the show, Claire asked if we could reclaim their pastel logs for use in our alphabet garden at Ormiston. Ed Duenas from My Philly Parks, and five Ormiston volunteers, went to the Convention Center on Monday morning March 12 to load the logs onto Ed’s truck.

Ed brought the pastel logs back to Ormiston where they are waiting for us to remove old rotting logs and replace them with the new ones. Come by to check on our progress … and let us know if you want to help! Write to info@ormistonmansion.org.

Kids in the Garden

Kids in the Garden

This year we are excited to share our garden with children in grades 1-5 from the Community Partnership School on nearby Glenwood Avenue.   CPS’s mission is to attend to the needs of children from an underserved North Central neighborhood characterized by high rates of poverty and low graduation rates. It is gratifying to work with dedicated teachers and such happy well-behaved children.   For an uplifting look at an inner city school proudly working  in partnership with parents, families and the community, visit the CPS website at www.communitypartnershipschool.org.

      We are working with the school’s science teacher, Ms. Concetta Errichiello with additional expertise from Bartram’s Garden outdoor education specialist, Leslie Gale.  So far, we have scheduled five days in spring, and hope to continue into summer.   

July 31: Garden Tours at Three Historical Mansions

This was a 3-part tour organized by the Fairmount Park Conservancy.  The plan was to meet at Woodford, walk to Ormiston and Strawberry Mansion and finish the day with wine and cheese at Woodford.  Ah, but no one imagined there were going to be rogue cars doing wheelies along Reservoir Drive, surrounded by puffs of exhaust smoke. The police finally broke up the drag races and the resilient garden group continued on its way.   

Amazingly, it turned out to be a grand day for Ormiston.  We ended up being the last mansion on the tour.  When the group arrived, everyone rested on the front wall.  They got a little orientation to the mansion  and then headed for a spin around the alphabet garden.  Each person got a list of flowers to look for in the garden, A to Z.  

The list of flower names is attached if you want to visit the garden yourself. To find the plants, look for the alphabet letters painted by children who took part in our spring garden events. Each alphabet letter has at least one plant that begins with the featured letter.

Since it was the end of the day, the host  brought the  wine and cheese to Ormiston’s front porch, and we were able to add an impromptu tour of the mansion. A good time was had by all.

Next we are looking forward to the Conservancy’s yearly Scavenger Hunt, where participants are given a list of items to find around the Park. The event will take place in September.   Details will follow.

July 30: A Visit from the Philadelphia Guild of Hand Weavers

Saturday July 30 was a beautiful day (not oppressively hot!) , and the weavers set up their chairs on the Ormiston lawn for their monthly meeting.  Members did a “show and tell” to share a large variety of  their current handiwork… not just weaving!    Afterwards, members of the Royal Heritage Society held a tea for them in the upstairs board room.  At the end of the day, guests were invited to pick a bouquet to take home.  There is a lovely article about Ormiston on the weavers website, complete with pictures.  

Visit pghw.org to find out about the organization.

 And check out the Ormiston article at pghw.org/event/a-day-in-the-garden-at-ormiston-mansion/

July 16: Kids' Pop Up: Birds of Prey

Did you know that owls swallow their prey whole?   Then they regurgitate things that they can’t digest – like feathers, teeth, and bones!   On Sat July 16, we looked for evidence of owls and other birds of prey along the Boxer Trail. 

Afterwards, Leslie Gale from Bartram’s Garden gave each participant their very own (sanitized) owl focus the discussion, Leslie provided diagrams of small animal skeletons, so kids could try to match the bones with their location in the skeleton.  Kids really liked doing this, especially this one particularly big kid!  (We  think he was a dad!)  

Afterwards, some kids picked garden bouquets to take home.

June 7: Fairmount Park Conservancy

Fairmount Park Conservancy has a new volunteers manager, Eduardo Duenas!  We are so lucky that he started to work at FPC this spring and was able to connect us with volunteers from Doublewood Supplements, a health supplements provider in Philadelphia.  The volunteers came to Ormiston on June 7, 2022, and swung into high gear.  They planted, mulched, pruned, laid pathways, dug beds and worked at top speed.  Those supplements must really work!  You can visit their website at www.doublewoodsupplements.com.  (Ed deserves a big thank-you, too.  You can write to him at eduenas@my phillypark.org.)  

June 5: The Queen's Jubilee Lunch

This year is Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubllee, in celebration of her 70 years as Queen.  This makes her the longest reigning queen in British history!   The Royal Heritage Society and the Daughters of the British Empire planned a wonderful event on the lawn at Ormiston.  The weather was outstanding, attendees brought delicious food, and a good time was had by all.  Read more about it under “Mansion News.”   

Flower-wise, we were delighted that we could make 30 vases of flowers from the Ormiston gardens!  We used bouquets of mint, sprinkled with red, white and blue flowers.  The garden volunteers also provided activities for kids: Pin the Purse on the Queen; Make a Crown; See Queen Elizabeth coins from countries around the world; and practice Croquet.  Pictured are Claire

Summer 2022 Garden Events

For updates about Ormiston news and events, visit  www.ormistonmansion.org.

Here are some upcoming events at #OrmistonMansion:

Sunday June 5,   The Queen’s Big Jubilee Lunch, 2:30pm on the Ormiston lawn.  Queen Elizabeth has been queen for 70 years, which makes her the longest reigning monarch in British history!  People are celebrating around the world.  Read the official invite. Besides the luncheon, there will  be kid activities on our side lawn including adding jewels to a paper crown, “Pin the Purse on the Queen”, taking pictures with a lifesize cutout of the Queen, viewing coins from Commonwealth countries, and helping yourself to a cupcake with a British toothpick flag!

Tuesday June 7   9am-noon  Join Phlly Park Volunteers who will be gardening on the Ormiston grounds.  Find out how you can be a volunteer gardener, or if you would like to try your hand with gardening.   No experience needed, but experienced gardeners are valuable resources!

June 18 – July 16 – Aug 13   10:30-12:30pm   Kids PopUp Workshops led by naturalist Leslie Gale, from Bartram’s Garden.  Take a walk on the Boxer Trail, then do a related craft.   Bring a picnic lunch and eat it on the lawn.  Fun for all ages!

July 30   10am-noon  Save the date!  The Guild of Philadelphia Handweavers will visit Ormiston Mansion and engage children and their parents in a weaving activity.    Details to follow.

Group Visits to Ormiston

Do you have a group  you would like to bring to Ormiston?   Children or adults.

Contact Claire Passantino to make arrangements for a group visit to Ormiston. Plan a program that will meet the needs and interests of your group.   215-771-0046        

May 21: CHS Fashion Show "Vernal Harmony"

On Saturday May 21 it was 95 degrees, but students from Central High School were not deterred. They held their yearly fashion show at Ormiston to model “wearable structures” constructed in their art class. Twenty students took part, and over fifty guests were seated on the front lawn. Later, guests were invited to a refreshment table on the side lawn, featuring rhododentron bouquets in teapots, a lemonade punchbowl, cucumber sandwiches, and a variety of sweets on tiered trays. A good time was had by all.


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May 7: Mothers Day

The weather on May 7 was dismal with cold rain and puddles galore. The task was to plant a flowering plant for mom, and then make a little card to go with the plant. (Mother’s Day was May 8, so we could not postpone the event!) Attendance was light but 12 kids came for the activity. We planted the plants inside the garden room, then ran to the back door and made our cards inside the Scottish kitchen. The kids were going to plant the remaining flower in the garden, but it had to wait for another day. Drip drop.

April 22: Earth Day

Four 3rd-grade classes visited from The Philadelphia School, about 60 kids in all.   We split into two smaller groups.  Each group took a nature walk down the Boxer Trail, led by their teacher.  Then we made potting soil in the wheelbarrow by digging compost and combining it with peat moss.  We put potting soil in little plastic cups and planted  sunflower seeds to take home.   It’s always a fun and educational day when TPS students and teachers visit Ormiston.