CIVIC IMPROVEMENT COMMITTEE

The committee identifies and manages Club-sponsored initiatives to plant and maintain the grounds of public and historic gardens in our community, as well as, other projects include those that further horticultural and floral knowledge and appreciation. The Club sponsors initiatives at the garden at Gibraltar designed by Marion Coffin, and the Ronald McDonald House.

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE MARION COFFIN GARDENS AT GIBRALTAR

The Marian Coffin Gardens at Gibraltar in Wilmington represents part of the historical heritage of Delaware. It is one of several regional gardens designed by Marian Coffin, a leading female landscape architect of the early 20th century.

Hugh Rodney Sharp and his wife, Isabella Mathieu du Pont Sharp, purchased the Gibraltar estate in 1909.  It was already an impressive 19th-century mansion surrounded by about 80 acres.  Sharp sought to expand the home, adding several wings, a conservatory, a carriage house, a greenhouse, a swimming pool, and most importantly, an elaborate garden. He hired Marian Cruger Coffin, an ambitious young woman with a passion for landscape design.

Starting with relatively small suburban flower gardens, Coffin had made a name for herself as an imaginative, fresh, and dynamic landscape architect.  In 1916, Hugh Sharp awarded Coffin the contract to design the Gibraltar garden, electing the Italianate Beaux Arts style, envisioning each area as a room or hallway in an outdoor mansion of its own.

Coffin designed the garden as a series of terraces leading from the mansion on the top of the hill, down to the flower garden below.  Each terrace has a unique theme or element, including a reflecting pool, statuary from all over the world, and a large tea house at the end of an allee of cypresses.

In 1998, Preservation Delaware, with backing of the community and the Sharp family, purchased the property, and undertook the restoration of the Coffin garden, which had been neglected since the 1960s.  Today, the estate is owned by the city of Wilmington, but the garden remains a part of Preservation Delaware.  The Garden Club of Wilmington has been active helping to restore and maintain the gardens.  

The gardens have undergone significant transformation in recent months. Newly under the management of Preservation Delaware’s Liz Allen, Coffin Horticulturalist and Volunteer Coordinator, the gardens and property have received much needed improvements. If you haven’t been to the garden at Gibraltar lately (or ever),  it is well worth a visit.  Open daily sunrise to sunset.    

part of  THE GARDEN CLUB of AMERICA  since 1920