GCA Heads to BOS

Ellen C. Wells

Garden Centers of America will be heading to Boston, Massachusetts, for its annual GCA Summer Tour. The tour dates, June 22-25, are a good time to visit this fair city as the students are gone, the traffic is less congested and the weather is typically superb.

So where will they be visiting?

• Briggs Garden & Home—North Attleborough
• Cataldo’s Gift & Garden—Littleton
• Kane’s Flower World—Danvers
• Mahoney’s Garden Center—Winchester, Brighton and Concord
• McCue Garden Center—Woburn
• Nunan Florist & Greenhouses—Georgetown
• Russell’s Garden Center—Wayland
• Weston Nurseries—Hopkinton
• Wolf Hill Garden Center—Ipswich

Some non-IGC stops are on the tour, too, including the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University in Jamaica Plain and Faneuil Hall Marketplace in Boston. And if you’re stopping at Faneuil Hall, the last stop on Wednesday, the Boston Public Market and the nearby revitalized Seaport District are a must for their retail models.

The host hotel for the GCA Summer Tour of the greater Boston area is Embassy Suites by Hilton in nearby Waltham. Book your rooms early, as Boston fills up with summer visitors pretty quickly. Register ASAP and even get some early-bird savings at www.GardenCentersofAmerica.com/register.htm.

Oh, by the way, the GCA tours usually run Sunday-Wednesday, but this event is lined up for Monday-Thursday. Jeff Morey at GCA said this year’s Sunday of the tour corresponds with Father’s Day and in the past he had requests for the tour to start a day later when that happens.

If Father’s Day doesn’t matter to you, maybe you extend your stay on the front end. Museums are everywhere, the food is terrific and the people watching—you gotta come just to listen to the variety of New England accents. Or book the weekend in Providence, Rhode Island, and tour some IGCs from Newport eastward. If you want to extend your stay and need some suggestions for what to do, I’m happy to help. Drop me a line at ewells@ballpublishing.com. GP