Dumbarton Oaks Park 76th Anniversary Celebration: Saturday, April 8th

Parks need to put time and energy into promotion.  in DC, along these lines, the Dumbarton Oaks Park Conservancy is particularly active in outreach and promotion.

A press release, from email:

Dumbarton Oaks Park Conservancy, a 501c3 non-profit dedicated to restoring, promoting, and maintaining the historic Dumbarton Oaks Park in Georgetown, continues its tradition of hosting the Park’s Anniversary of opening to the public, this year the 76th. The Celebration will take place in the Park on Saturday, April 8th from 9:00am to 2:30pm.

9:00am Land stewardship volunteer event.
Attendees will assist the Conservancy with restoration activities while learning about some of the threats to the health of the Park including stormwater runoff, and invasive plant species.

11:30am Ceremonial reopening of the Park gates with Rock Creek Park Superintendent Julia Washburn and Conservancy President Lindsey Milstein.


12:00 to 2:30pm. Activity Fair.
Exhibitors will include community, environmental, and non-profit partners: Casey Trees, Montgomery County Conservation Corps, National Park Service, the Urban Adventure Squad, and more. Family-friendly activities will be featured, including Park history and restoration tours, interactive environmental exhibits, games, drawing lessons, children’s arts ‘n’ crafts, face painting, and bird walks led by DC Audubon. Picnics on our recently restored meadows are also encouraged.


Image from Georgetown Metropolitan.

Dumbarton Oaks Park is the world’s only surviving wild garden designed by Beatrix Farrand, the first professional woman landscape architect in U.S. history, and the only female founding member of the American Society of Landscape Architects.

Farrand designed the 27-acre property in the 1920s as part of the original Dumbarton Oaks estate. On April 12, 1940 the wild garden was donated by the estate owners, Robert and Mildred Woods Bliss, to the citizens of the United States. 

A year later the property officially opened to the public as Dumbarton Oaks Park, a National Park Service administrative sub-unit of Rock Creek Park.

Over the years, Dumbarton Oaks Park has been overcome by invasive, non-native plants which threaten biodiversity as well as the Park’s historic design integrity. Urban stormwater runoff and its associated problems of erosion and water pollution are one of the Park’s largest threats. Dumbarton Oaks Park Conservancy, an official partner of the National Park Service, was founded in 2010 to mitigate these problems and restore the park to its former glory.

Public access to Dumbarton Oaks Park is from Lover’s Lane, located at approximately 3060 R Street NW in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC.