Heritage Garden Quilt Trail 2024

If you spend any kind of time in Elkhart, IN this summer, May 30th through September 15th, you really should check out the Heritage Garden Quilt Tour 2024. Sparky checked it out for you if you are not able to be in the area this year. For those waiting on RV repairs, or camping in the area for the summer, it's a great family activity and really beautiful to see. May 30th is when the 13 gardens (this year) have been planted, and early September would be when they are winding down in their beauty, but it's still a fantastic way to see the Amish countrysides of Elkhart, Bristol, Goshen, Middlebury, Nappanee, and Wakarusa in the summer months. It's also a great way to see the several small towns in Indiana that are always mentions as some of the best small towns in America on various surveys. 

There are hand painted quilt themed super sized art murals to be seen as well along with the gardens. They are mounted on the sides of buildings, some near the gardens, some are not. The same painted murals go up year after year until they need replacing as they gradually age out. On the map, the quilt gardens are marked with a red square. The hand painted murals are marked on the map with an orange square. Some fun facts about the quilt gardens:

1. All the wall murals are handpainted by one man, Jeff Stillson, from Nappanee. They go up when the gardens are planted, then are taken down when the last flower is dug up. They have a shelf life of about 10 years and are stored over the winter.

2. The quilt gardens started in 2007 with two test gardens, one at the famous Amish style restaurant, Das Dutch Esssenhaus, in Middlebury. Sometimes the locations change each year, but Das Essenhaus has always had a garden every year since the beginning.

3. Two hundred plus volunteers plant, weed, water, and maintain the gardens.

4. There are an estimated one million blooms in all the gardens put together.

5. Four quilt gardens are located at sites with historical significance-Ruthmere in Elkhart, Krider World's Fair Garden, Elkhart County 4H Fairgrounds and the Elkhart County Courthouse.

6. Two of the quilt gardens are more than 2,000 square feet! Essenhaus is the largest at 3,142 square feet. Dutch Country Market is another large one. 

butterfly chair $309.00

Linton Enchanted Gardens in Elkhart on Cty. Rd. 17 used to have a really big one as well, but a butterfly garden has replaced the quilt garden this year. Some amazing beautiful Asian lilies there, along with everything you could possibly think of for gardens--plants, statues, seating, fountains, knick knacks, etc.

We visited that site thinking there was a quilt garden, there wasn't, but Linton Enchanted Gardens is a tourist worthy stop of its own! It's the largest garden center in the state of Indiana with 9 acres of outdoor shopping, a parakeet house, a petting zoo, and more. The parakeets were comical, fussing at each other, talking to each other, and these ones all on one row had the one on the end poking and pestering the one next to him until he had had enough and flew off. They were fun to watch. 

There are all these cool reproduction architectural structures--houses, buildings, and weird tongue-in-cheek/whimsical items among the thousand of flowers and plants displayed. Linton's also had a little go-cart track with carts, and a little tourist train that ran around the gardens that you could ride.

one of the model buildings on the grounds

It has an AMAZING gift shop, and beautiful birds flying all over the place amongst the pines. Sparky saw a baby cedar waxwing fledgling tightly gripping the park on a pine tree off to the side of the walkway, and then saw the parent waxwing come in and feed the baby right on the bark! She tried to wait out a second visit from the parents feeding the little one, but they were too cautious with her there.

almost got the photo!

(Sparky has an eagle eye for birds these days--HAHAHAHAHA! laughs E.) Ouch. 

Back to the short list about the gardens Sparky got sidetracked....

7. The gardens are composed of all kinds of bedding plants--begonias, impatiens, zinnias, petunias, marigolds, sweet potato vines, dusty miller, dichondra, curly parsley and coleus of all colors and shapes. Patterns are taken from centuries of quilt design dating back to the 1800's.

You can print out a map for the quilt gardens online, or pick one up in person at the Elkhart County Visitor's Center. Here is a direct link to the quilt gardens

There is also a free, separate audio driving tour of these areas called the Heritage Trail and can be downloaded at Visit Elkhart County.  

On to the gardens! We did it in a semi organized fashion. We started in Goshen, because that's the closest to our apartment, and proceeded to cover part of the tour on a couple different days. You could easily do it in less than a day if you wanted. There are three gardens in Goshen--the locations are Elkhart County Courthouse, the 4-H Fairgrounds, and Abshire Park.

Elkhart County Courthouse--"Many Beautiful Parts"

4H fairgrounds-"Rising Dawn"

It doesn't take that long to find the gardens, so we did a few one day this week, then covered some more the next day while out on some more errands. Abshire Park in Goshen, where Sparky usually starts off on the Pumpkinvine Bike Trail, has a pretty one called "The Sunburst". 

Abshire Park--"Sunburst"

Each garden has a sign that tells the name of the quilt inspired pattern a little bit of history about the location, and the names of the flowers planted for the design.

Next, Elkhart, the town itself. There are three gardens here....The "Take Heart Garden" downtown near the riverwalk....Elkhart calls itself the "City With a Heart" so this is very apropos. There are large painted hearts all over the city from a sculpture/artwork contest years ago that are fun to see a well. There's actually a LOT of artwork and sculptures to see in this northwestern small Indiana town. Look at this copper beauty! This is near the Brass Elk in downtown Elkhart. We think it's a nod to the brass musical instrument industry that used to make Elkhart the band industry capital of the world. (Eldy used to buff musical instruments for famous jazz players and for the Olympics!).

"Take Heart Garden"

The "Discovery in Bloom" garden near the Ruthmere Mansion...

And one very interesting one at the Elkhart Environmental Center...WOW! Three butterflies with pipes for antennae. It's called "Spread Your Wings".

Here is a closeup of the detail of the butterflies...Not a pretty day to view this garden, but we loved seeing the creative use of plants and piping anyway!

On to Middlebury's three gardens....at the Das Dutchman Essenhaus, another one of Sparky's favorites and the largest garden on the tour. This garden is called "Blazing Star Garden". Stop and enjoy a delicious Amish homestyle meal at the Essenhaus while you are there.

The second one is at Kryder World's Fair Garden in Middlebury...This is the "Box Car" garden....A little harder to see the pattern with the shade and time of day...Kryder Gardens is a beautiful stop to rest and see all the beautiful plantings, sculptures and water features. It's a spectacular botanical gardens for such a small town as Middlebury. Plants are labeled, there are beautiful benches and gazebos to sit and admire nature. It's a wonderful place to stop.

The third one is at the Dutch Country Market on Cty Rd. 16, and it's a beauty even on a dreary day!

In Nappanee, we visited the Farmhouse Inn Bed and Breakfast site, where we saw the "HIS Indian Sunburst" garden. It was a beautiful setting with the red barn in the background.

Our next stop was Wakarusa...a cool little town with a really interesting candy shop, which we stayed out of today, for health reasons, haha. But the quilt garden, the "Full Blown Tulip Garden" on S. Elkhart St., was a great way to end our little tour.

There are two more we missed, but we'll have to check those out the next time we are out and about in the county. We need to see the "Burst of Joy" garden at the Elkhart County Historical Museum in Bristol, and the "Tracking Our Beginning" garden at the Nappanee Center on West Market St.

Hope you have enjoyed seeing these amazing gardens if you are not able to do the tour in our area. It's one of many cool things to see and do in the Elkhart County area. 

We love living here!

Bye for now.....            Eldo and Sparky