Sherwood Gardens

IT WAS A CHANCE remark spoken the other day over lunch. Three of us were gabbing away at the Owl Bar in The Belvedere. Baltimore architect Walter Schamu said that this past Sunday was so beautiful that Greenway -- and Sherwood Gardens -- looked like a scene from a painting by Degas.I took another spoon of bread pudding and considered that comparison. I too had been walking around the Guilford neighborhood. It was true. People were out and about, walking, driving, snooping, breathing in a deep gulp of a lush Baltimore spring afternoon.

Gardens were filled with tulips. Dogwood blossoms and tender new shoots were mulched. Windows glistened, tables glowed and chandeliers glittered in the April sun. Guilford homeowners were ready for the visitors who would come during the Guilford edition of the 75th Maryland House and Garden Pilgrimage on April 28 - the kickoff to the upscale community's year-long centennial celebration. And come the visitors did - 1,973 tickets were sold. While they were admiring those houses and gardens, proceeds from the pilgrimage tour were helping to ensure another year of beauty in nearby Sherwood Gardens, where 80,000 tulips were in full bloom Sunday.

Each spring, flower lovers for miles around flock to Sherwood Gardens to gaze at its now-famous array of 80,000 tulips. But come Memorial Day, the tulip-gazers are gone, and the garden is transformed from a palette of vibrant color to a blank - if not completely clean - slate. What few outside of the surrounding streets of Guilford know is that Memorial Day is not the end of the garden's splendor, but the beginning of a quieter, more casual custom that keeps Sherwood Gardens blooming for several more months and transforms its neighbors into summer horticulturists.

It's June, the month of the strawberry moon, according to Native American lore. In our neighborhood, it is the month of roses. Guilford's gardens are abloom with roses of every variety and hue. At our house, careful watering through the recent heat wave have produced a plethora of blooms, many of them from heirloom plants, a legacy of a former owner. From palest pink to deepest crimson, they are a joy to behold. We do not grow strawberry plants, but we do see tiny pears on our tree, a promise of luscious fruits in just a few weeks.

Sherwood Gardens in Guilford, home of Baltimore's elegant spring tulip display, may go the way of the daffodil - or cultivate a much simpler look and feel. Nothing is settled, but city dollars to help finance the planting of 77,000 tulip bulbs in Guilford every year are likely to be cut in the austere budget climate, city officials said. Three Baltimore Recreation and Parks officials met with three Guilford Association leaders May 10 to explain the city cannot afford to contribute its usual $23,000 to the planting and upkeep of the public tulip garden Guilford shows off to thousands of visitors every spring.

Not everything is coming up tulips at Guilford's famed Sherwood Gardens. Sure, there are plenty of flower beds for visitors to enjoy - dazzling displays of pinks, reds, yellows, purples and blazing oranges. But something is different. Unlike any previous tulip season at this 6-plus-acre urban oasis, two beds lay bare and many more are sparsely blooming. Maybe 25 percent to 30 percent of the 70,000 tulips planted last fall didn't come up correctly, estimates Bruce Barnett, a Guilford Association board member who oversees Sherwood Gardens.

John Payne arrived at 6:30 a.m. - half an hour early - to set up, only to gaze upon the "Sooners," who were already filling plastic bags, wagons and buckets with tulip bulbs. The early birds have become as much a tradition as the annual excavation in Sherwood Gardens in Baltimore. "A lot of these are repeat people," said Payne, a volunteer with the Guilford Association, which sponsors the dig. "They start coming at dawn." By 7 a.m.

City dollars for Guilford's Sherwood Gardens, a sea of tall tulips that attracts thousands of visitors each spring, are on the budget-cutting block. Saying they feel blindsided, leaders of the Guilford Association sent a letter to Mayor Martin O'Malley yesterday protesting a looming cut of $23,000 in the city's Department of Recreation and Parks budget. That sum -- modest in the agency's $26 million spending proposal -- has been the city's annual payment to help fund the North Baltimore tulip garden since the 1970s.

Fast approaching the moment flower-lovers live for all year, the city's Sherwood Gardens -- and its 80,000 tulips -- is about to become a rhapsody in bloom."

Gardens were filled with tulips. Dogwood blossoms and tender new shoots were mulched. Windows glistened, tables glowed and chandeliers glittered in the April sun. Guilford homeowners were ready for the visitors who would come during the Guilford edition of the 75th Maryland House and Garden Pilgrimage on April 28 - the kickoff to the upscale community's year-long centennial celebration. And come the visitors did - 1,973 tickets were sold. While they were admiring those houses and gardens, proceeds from the pilgrimage tour were helping to ensure another year of beauty in nearby Sherwood Gardens, where 80,000 tulips were in full bloom Sunday.

A trip to Sherwood Gardens is a spring ritual worth repeating. I've been going there all my life, and it never gets old. If anything, on a recent warm evening, nearing nightfall, it seemed fresh, fertilized and healthy. The place was full of families who were there for the same reason I was. It was a chance to take in the glories of a Maryland spring. I am not sure I would want to be surrounded by all those pinks, purples and yellows year-round. But in April, after what we endured in February, give me all those tulip beds, flowering trees and shrubs.

John Payne arrived at 6:30 a.m. - half an hour early - to set up, only to gaze upon the "Sooners," who were already filling plastic bags, wagons and buckets with tulip bulbs. The early birds have become as much a tradition as the annual excavation in Sherwood Gardens in Baltimore. "A lot of these are repeat people," said Payne, a volunteer with the Guilford Association, which sponsors the dig. "They start coming at dawn." By 7 a.m.

Not everything is coming up tulips at Guilford's famed Sherwood Gardens. Sure, there are plenty of flower beds for visitors to enjoy - dazzling displays of pinks, reds, yellows, purples and blazing oranges. But something is different. Unlike any previous tulip season at this 6-plus-acre urban oasis, two beds lay bare and many more are sparsely blooming. Maybe 25 percent to 30 percent of the 70,000 tulips planted last fall didn't come up correctly, estimates Bruce Barnett, a Guilford Association board member who oversees Sherwood Gardens.

It's one of Baltimore's most public properties, yet the Sherwood Mansion is so not for everyone. For 80 years it has been seen, shared, celebrated and wondered about, a stately Guilford homestead on the grounds of gardens so lush that people make springtime pilgrimages just to catch them in bloom. But appreciating this house and buying it are two very different things. Who has the millions? Who is OK with being on display? Whose house-hunting must-have list includes "movie theater," "wine cellar" and "air-conditioned doghouse"?

It looks as if the local chapter of the George Clooney fan club will be meeting next week in Guilford, the posh North Baltimore neighborhood. Scenes for Syriana, a spy thriller set against the backdrop of the gulf war and the continuing unrest in the Middle East, will be shot in Baltimore during much of the coming month. Among the first locations will be a home in Guilford. Homeowner Douglas Becker, chairman and CEO of Laureate Education Inc. (formerly Sylvan Learning Systems), would not comment on the filming.

J. Edward Johnston - aka the "Birdman of Guilford" - has been inviting strangers onto his front lawn to visit with his parrots and cockatiels for nearly two decades. At 80, he's still squawking out facts about the birds (for example: Parrots are the fourth-smartest animals on the planet) and setting the stage for the Houdini-esque escape act of a blue macaw named Margaret. "She's so fast, you won't see her [execute her] escape," Johnston told a group of visitors recently, waving his hand toward Margaret, who was perched on his shoulder.

Why not make the Americas a free trade area? It already is in coca products. The Mississippi is too much, especially if you live near it. There will still be AIDS in Africa. It just won't be the drug companies' fault. Do not visit the Cone Collection expecting to see a collection of cones. It's spring in Sherwood Gardens and all is right with the world.

Sawing, sanding, sweeping, painting,Washing windows and the sills.(Look, a robin hopping briskly,And there, a ''host of daffodils.'')Get down, get busy, dust and polish,Wax the floor and mend the chair.(But pause and visit Sherwood Gardens --Their glory is for all to share.)Set out plants and trim the hedges,Rake the yard around the edges.Get out clothes for warmer weather.All too soon spring will decline.Now let's get ready, all together,And with all creation shine.

Sherwood Gardens in Guilford, home of Baltimore's elegant spring tulip display, may go the way of the daffodil - or cultivate a much simpler look and feel. Nothing is settled, but city dollars to help finance the planting of 77,000 tulip bulbs in Guilford every year are likely to be cut in the austere budget climate, city officials said. Three Baltimore Recreation and Parks officials met with three Guilford Association leaders May 10 to explain the city cannot afford to contribute its usual $23,000 to the planting and upkeep of the public tulip garden Guilford shows off to thousands of visitors every spring.

Tulip gardens not a priority for city budget Howard Friedel and the Guilford Association should be embarrassed to protest the proposed budget cuts for the tulips in Sherwood Gardens ("City aims to clip off funds for Guilford tulip display," May 4). While Mr. Friedel worries about the loss of "perfection" to the flower beds if the tulips are allowed to bloom more than one year in a row, hundreds of city parks and playgrounds are poorly maintained, schools are understaffed and facing more layoffs and curbside recycling may be cut. Rather than expecting the city to decorate this "upscale enclave," the members of the Guilford Association can surely donate a few hundred dollars apiece, or even raise the price of the tulip bulbs (which they sell at the end of the season)