Grounds &Garden Day: Wildflower Edition

On June 6, 2025, the Manice Education Center hosted its second Grounds & Garden Day, welcoming alumni, former staff, friends, and family to the grounds. This year, the theme was “wildflowers” in honor of Ted Elliman, the founder of Manice and its first director.

Ted Elliman is an author and botanist, and wildflowers of the Northeast is his specialty. One of the goals of this day was to plant out our new wildflower meadow at the top of the hill in his honor. The groundwork for the meadow had begun at the previous year’s Grounds & Garden Day, where a team removed the old growth of a garden gone to seed. A team worked together to lay out special native plants that will serve as the foundation for this new space. This year, a multi-generational team worked under hot, sunny skies and finished their planting just in time for a thunderstorm.

Meanwhile, down the hill, another group worked to bring the vegetable garden up to muster for this year’s growing season. They weeded, hoed the soil, and planted new vegetables, such as tomatoes. Another group worked in the forest to spruce up nearby trails. The day ended with a dinner by Chef George and a sense of satisfaction among all.

Read about the 2024 Grounds and Garden Day here.