The Gardens at Mill Fleurs – A Summer Tour with Barbara Tiffany

The Hardy Plant Society, Mid-Atlantic Group has received a special invitation to tour the Gardens at Mill Fleurs on three separate occasions in 2026. Mill Fleurs is the home of Barbara and Robert (‘Tiff’) Tiffany. Barbara will be our tour guide extraordinaire. If you have never been to Mill Fleurs, or haven’t been there recently, plan to visit this extraordinary garden with us this year. The last of our three tours will be held on July 22^nd.

Barbara has shared what we can look forward to on this visit:

I am excited to share my garden with my knowledgeable friends at Hardy Plant – with the caveat that EVERYONE’S garden is a joy as it displays its vibrant colors in the magical Summer of the Mid-Atlantic!

I had intended to share two brand new areas with my Hardy Plant Society friends on this tour, The Island and The Wild Garden, which I developed during the summer of 2025. However, the massive ice-break-up on the Tohickon Creek this past winter reminded me that mortals are never in charge!

As the season unfolds, I will be inspired to create something new and interesting for this area, keeping in mind the message the storm sent. I will be happy to share my new vision with you; there will be plenty to talk about.

Because there are a lot of weird and wonderful things unfolding; and because the terrain is challenging, perhaps your visit might best be spent just exploring. I will spend as much time answering questions as you wish.

You are more than welcome to bring a picnic lunch. We are happy to offer iced tea and homemade (gluten-free) cookies.

The Gardens Mill Fleurs – as described by Barbara:

The Gardens at Mill Fleurs are collection gardens, but primarily they are an experience. Personal and unique – as is every garden – Mill Fleurs definitely qualifies as an “eccentric American garden.”

Against all good advice we have spent 25⁺ years creating an impossible garden on an impossible site. It certainly is romantic – a grist mill and a sawmill side by side on the banks of the sometimes-raging Tohickon Creek. We are fortunate that our stream-side site, featuring massive rock outcroppings and steep woodland slopes, is magnificent all on its own. Into this challenging grade, we have shoe-horned all the shade plants we can secure. And keep alive.

At Mill Fleurs we are trying to stretch horticultural and zonal boundaries by planting every possible species of any genus we can grow. This is a conscious effort to acknowledge the rapid and violent daily loss of plant species around the planet due to habitat degradation, climate change, and the survival needs of the peoples who inhabit these places.

Tiffany Perennials, our growing retail nursery, offers selections billed as “Really, Really Rare Species, Interesting Natives, and Fancy Weeds!” In support of the preservation of biodiversity, we trial and share plants from around the globe.

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