Garden Tours

Eleanor Boyd Johnson, a longtime Baltimore Museum of Art docent and avid gardener, died of breast cancer Saturday at Roland Park Place. She was 80. Born Eleanor Boyd in Philadelphia and raised in Chestnut Hill, she was a 1939 graduate of the Springside School. Mrs. Johnson was the daughter of Joseph Fulton Boyd, an official of the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Eddystone, Pa., and the granddaughter of Union Gen. Joseph Boyd, who led a successful escape from the notorious Libby Prison in Richmond, Va., during the Civil War. She was secretary to the headmaster of the William Penn Charter School in Philadelphia, and during World War II worked in San Francisco.

Inside, outside House and garden tours The 65th annual Maryland House and Garden Pilgrimage begins the first of its six tours this weekend: On Saturday, tour 16 homes in Kent County; Sunday, tour 12 homes in Talbot County; May 4, tour 13 homes in Baltimore's Canton neighborhood; May 11, tour 11 homes in Calvert County; May 18, tour 14 homes in Frederick County, and May 19, tour nine homes in Montgomery County. Each home will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tickets cost $25 per tour and can be bought in advance from Pilgrimage headquarters, 1105A Providence Road, Towson, or at any house on the day of the tour.

SOME PEOPLE daydream by reading the seed catalogs this time of year. I have been daydreaming of gardens. And this year, some of the most beautiful gardens in the country will be featured as the Maryland House and Garden Pilgrimage visits Anne Arundel County.Each year, the pilgrimage focuses on gardens in a different area of the state. This tour, scheduled for April 17, when the gardens should be at the peak of their beauty, will stop at 14 gardens and homes in The Downs, Crownsville, Millersville, Davidsonville and Crofton.

By late next month, the air will finally begin to fill with the sweet scents of spring. As the breeze slowly warms, crocus, tulips and daffodils will sprout from softened ground, and red maples, dogwoods and forsythia will start to bud. Grass will begin its slow transformation to green. The birds that wintered quietly in their nests or traveled farther south will gradually reappear, first the fox sparrows, then the robins and eventually the bluebirds. They bring with them their bright colors splashed on a still-gray background and their light-hearted songs.

Reister's Towne FestivalEnjoy a weekend of down-home family fun at this year's Reister's Towne Festival. See live entertainment from the Daryl Davis Band, Bob Plunkert, Razin Kane, the Mood Swings, the Kindersingers and many others. Catch rising country music star Rhett Akins ("That Ain't My Truck" and "I Brake for Brunettes") as he performs 5 p.m.-6:30 p.m. Sunday.Also browse arts and crafts and food vendors from noon to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Watch a parade of floats, marching bands, antique cars and fire engines move from Franklin High School, 12000 Reisterstown Road, to Franklin Middle School, 10 Cockeys Mill Road, 9 a.m.-noon Saturday.

Defender's DayGo back in time and meet one of American history's most notable couples, as Mr. and Mrs. Francis Scott Key come to life at the Star-Spangled Banner Flag House Saturday. Living-history actors Alan Gephardt and Sonia Socha portray the couple. Hear Mr. Key's recollections of the bombs bursting in air as he recounts tales of the bombardment of Baltimore in 1814. And listen in as Mrs. Key describes her hectic life -- married to the famous Georgetown lawyer and raising 11 children.

House tours, show houses and garden tours -- fund-raisers for a social-service organization, school or historic preservation group -- have started at country estates, urban apartments and backyard gardens in East Coast states.DelawareWilmington, May 17 through June 9 -- An estate overlooking the Delaware River in Bellevue State Park will be the site of a show house and antiques and garden show and sale. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tickets, $10, off Marsh Road via Washington Street Extension.

JOIN THE Friendly Thyme Herb Club on a four-day bus tour of North Carolina gardens. The group will depart early May 12 from the Ferndale Senior Center and return May 15.The group will stop in Richmond, Va., for a guided tour of Agecroft Hall, a 15th-century home that was dismantled in England and moved to the United States in 1925.Club members will tour Old Salem village in Winston-Salem, N.C., a restored Moravian community that prospered in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.Other tours on the agenda include the Reynolds House Museum of America, the campus and gardens of Wake Forest University, and the N.C. Botanical Gardens at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

I usually feature new home-related businesses in this column, but it doesn't hurt every once in a while to point out one that's almost a historic landmark. The American Shade Co. (815 N. Howard St., [401] 728-5891) certainly qualifies; it's been in business since 1916 making custom blinds and shades."We get most of our work by word of mouth," says company vice president Dick Tillman. All blinds and shades are made on the premises in the latest colors and materials. The craftsmanship may be old-fashioned, but the styles aren't.

If you're feeling that springtime urge to get out and frolic where there are thousands of flowers, good food and good walks, you might consider popping down to Richmond, or over to Middleburg, or out to the James River Plantations for a leisurely saunter through what has been called America's Largest Open House.During Garden Week, April 19-27, Virginia throws open more than 250 historic and private homes and gardens from the Tidewater to the mountains, for a weeklong celebration of fragrance, blossom and beauty.