Discover the treasures in your own backyard on this admission-free day at Winterthur. Get outside and explore the garden, take a hayride over the hills, or learn something new in our galleries. Enjoy live music and activities around the estate such as crafting, garden hikes, and story time. Together with our community partners, Winterthur offers fun for all, inside and out! Join us free of charge all day.

Please be aware that parking is limited, and we expect a large turnout early in the day. Please visit any time but consider arriving later. You will have plenty of time to enjoy all Winterthur has to offer.

Register now.

Visitor Center

  • Meet on the Visitor Center patio for a Garden Walk and visit garden areas not seen from the tram route.
  • Humane Animal Partners (HAP) will be on-site with adoptable pups. Stop by their table to learn more about their adoption services, low-cost wellness and vaccine clinics, and volunteer opportunities like Doggy Day Out.
  • Play with your child and learn how games and activities stimulate their development with Books, Balls & Blocks. Skill-building activities focus on communication and language, cognition and problem solving, gross and fine motor skills, and literacy.
  • Enjoy a performance by The Rainbow Chorale of Delaware, a non-auditioned LGBTQ+ and allies community chorus as they sing songs from their 25th anniversary season.

Greenhouses & Brown Horticulture Learning Center

  • Meet Sarah Bourne Rafferty of Atwater Designs, see her recent creations, and watch her create works of art using cyanotype, the oldest photographic process.
  • Learn which vegetables can be seeded for the fall season at home and see demonstrations of seeding and transplanting vegetables into containers from the Food Bank of Delaware. Take home free seeding supplies to use your new skills and try at home. A donation box for canned goods will be in the Visitor Center lobby, if you wish to donate.
  • Join the Winterthur Delaware Master Naturalist group for “Nature Gardening.” Enjoy activities and crafts and learn how to add native plants into your gardening.
  • Decorate your own terra cotta pots with garden-inspired designs, then plant a seed in it and learn how to care for the new plant. Make a wooden garden marker to label your soon-to-be flower or vegetable.
  • Climb aboard Winterthur’s firetruck and discover its fascinating history and role in protecting the estate.

Clenny Run Lawn

  • Experience Bubbletopia with giant soap bubbles, lively music, and interactive fun.
  • Get your face painted, inspired by the garden. 
  • Learn about Read Aloud Delaware’s Volunteer Reading Program and LENA Start—a free program designed to guide parents of newborns to 3-year-olds as they prepare their child for kindergarten. Enjoy a giveaway of new and gently used books for children, and an interactive visit with Mother Goose.

Galleries Reception Area

  • Visit The Division of the Arts for creative activities, giveaways, and information about its grants and programs for attendees of all ages.
  • Stop by the People to People Delaware table to pick up a free peace sticker and play their global kids’ game to win a prize.
  • Discover dinosaurs and more with the Delaware Museum of Nature & Science (10:00 am–2:00 pm). See fossils and tools and learn what makes a dinosaur. Take your own fossil souvenir home.
  • Learn the basics of weaving on a simple loom that can fit in your hands and go with you with Hello Loom.
  • Visit full-scale and child-sized reproductions of a workbench from Winterthur’s With Hammer in Hand exhibit.  Try some of the tools that were used to flatten, smooth, and shave wood in an 18th-century cabinet shop.

Rotunda

  • Join Emmanuel Aboagye, Wilmington artist of Ghanian descent and Winterthur Maker-Creator 2025 fellow, for a hands-on art session using an image transfer process, followed by painting, collage, and drawing on canvas.

Library

  • Stop by the Winterthur Library from 10:00 am–2:00 pm for drop-in activities. Explore toys and games from the past, read a storybook, or make your own colorful bookmark.

East Gallery Terrace

  • Hayrides will depart from the east side of the Galleries (next to the library) every 30 minutes, 10:00 am–3:00 pm.

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