Hagley Museum

Tigers leaping through rings of fire, seals balancing balls and playful monkeys are featured attractions -- but at this circus, animals are made of plant material and the rings of fire are actually fire-colored chrysanthemums. "Under the Big Top" is the theme of this year's Chrysanthemum Festival, which opened yesterday and runs through Nov. 20 at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pa.The circus theme offers a colorful backdrop for the equally colorful 20,000 chrysanthemums. Calliope music sets the mood as a pair of grapevine elephants leads the way to Longwood's Big Top. Inside, fun-house mirrors are sure to put a smile on your face, along with antique circus wagons, carousel animals and three teams of miniature circus wagons.

The Goschenhoppen Folk Festival is nationally recognized as an educational opportunity for the whole family. Here crafts, tools, dress and even the food are authentic 18th- and 19th-century Pennsylvania German. The Goschenhoppen Historians, sponsors of the event, insist on accuracy in the portrayal of its folk culture.The 29th annual festival will take place Aug. 11-12 at the New Goschenhoppen Park in East Greenville, Pa. Its theme, "Eat it up, wear it out, make it do," emphasizes the fact that nothing was ever discarded or destroyed in this culture.

Visitors from all over the country are flocking to Virginia for Historic Garden Week, considered to be the oldest and largest house-and-garden tour in the United States. The annual event, in its 59th year, opened yesterday in Hanover and Southampton counties, and it will continue daily through next Sunday, visiting more than 200 private homes and gardens in 33 areas of the state.The Garden Club of Virginia, sponsor of the tour, has raised more than $5 million from past events. Funds have been used to improve and restore the grounds of many of the state's historic landmarks, including Monticello, General Robert E. Lee's birthplace at Stratford, Va., Kenmore Plantation in Fredericksburg and Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg.

The Goschenhoppen Folk Festival celebrates its 25th year Friday and Saturday at the New Goschenhoppen Park in East Greenville, Pa.The festival was started by the Goschenhoppen Historians, who found it was a good way to teach and preserve the heritage and local folk culture of the oldest existing continuously Pennsylvania Dutch community in the country. Today it is nationally recognized as an educational event for the whole family, totally devoid of commercialism.A walk through the 10-acre park is a step back in time with more than 500 skilled and apprentice craftspeople, clad in Colonial costumes, performing 18th and 19th century crafts.

One of America's earliest communal societies, the Ephrata Cloister, was founded in Ephrata, Pa., by Conrad Beissel in 1732. On March 1, Beissel's 300th birthday will be marked at the cloister by a day of special activities, launching a yearlong celebration.Beissel was born in 1691 in Eberbach, Germany, the son of a local baker. He became a Pietist (member of a 17th century religious movement that originated in Germany, stressing revitalized evangelical Christianity). With his followers he separated from the Dunkard Church, came to this country and established a radical religious communal society in Pennsylvania.

The 12th annual Irish Workers' Festival will take place on Saturday at the Hagley Museum and Library in Wilmington. The event celebrates the contributions Irish workers made to the du Pont powder mills in the 19th century. The mills, along with the original du Pont estate and gardens, are situated on Hagley grounds.One of the museum's popular events, the festival features a full schedule of entertainment. Most of the activities will take place on Blacksmith Hill, the restored mill workers' community, where you can hear a Celtic trio, an Irish folk musician and a singer of Irish ballads.

Maybe you didn't make it to the Philadelphia Flower Show, the world's largest indoor show, which was held a couple of months ago. But that doesn't mean you have to miss out on all the area's gardens. In Philadelphia and the surrounding countryside, visitors will find the largest concentration of public gardens and arboretums in North America -- more than 30.From the manicured farmlands in Pennsylvania's Bucks and Chester counties to the wealthy suburban estates of Montgomery County and the fertile banks of the Brandywine River, towering trees, lush woody plants, and eye-popping blossoms color the landscape with an intense, natural beauty.

House and garden tours move into Maryland this week with the opening of the 56th annual Maryland House and Garden Pilgrimage on Saturday in Kent County. Additional tours are listed in Cecil, Anne Arundel, Harford, Baltimore and Calvert counties with a final one in Baltimore City May 12.The pilgrimage opens with a tour of Chestertown and its fine old 18th- and 19th-century homes, along with visits to properties on the surrounding waterways. Lunch will be available at the Chester River Yacht and Country Club.

Here's what you think you know about Wilmington: It's an Amtrak stop between Baltimore and Philadelphia. It's a skyline, largely unremarkable, that you glimpse while racing up Interstate 95, just before the Delaware Memorial Bridge. And it's the "Chemical Capital of the World," courtesy of the du Pont family. But here's what you ought to know: Wilmington -- yes, that Wilmington -- is undergoing a robust renaissance that makes it a prime destination for day-trippers. It's got a waterfront that's becoming sleek, hip -- and growing more hip. It's got a restaurant scene that's off the charts right now. And it's got a thriving cultural arts community, ranging from the long- celebrated Winterthur to snappier venues like a popular art-movie house, Theatre N, and the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts, which presents more than 30 exhibitions a year.

It was a golden, early November day, all the more beautiful for the lingering foliage season. My husband, Tom, and I slipped off I-95 north of the Susquehanna River and into the countryside where Maryland fades into Pennsylvania. As we drove toward Chadds Ford, the community immortalized by painter N.C. Wyeth and his descendants, their artistic inspiration was made plain by a landscape of silos, stubbled fields, stone walls and ridges of brilliant fall colors, animated by confetti flutters of leaves.