If there is one festival to attend in the spring, the Leesburg Flower and Garden Festival is it. What is normally a historic downtown main street turns into a haven for plant and flower lovers. With vendors from all across the East Coast selling a variety of houseplants, flowers, and other artisan garden essentials, this year’s festival attracted tens of thousands of attendees.

Virginian vendor Fly Home Birdhouses has been participating in the Leesburg Flower and Garden Festival for close to twenty years. Owned by Berryville residents Ginger Reuling and Clark Hansbarger, Fly Home Birdhouses was established twenty five years ago. Made with careful craftsmanship, attention to detail, and promised durability, Reuling and Hansbarger’s birdhouses are truly one of a kind. While the bird houses were originally intended to hold only bluebirds, “[they] will also house a variety of other small songbirds like a wren, a finch, a chickadee, a nuthatch, a tree swallow. If you put it [the birdhouses] on a pole, you will attract a bluebird. If you hang it, you’ll get some of those other birds,’ Rueling explained. Hansbarger and Reuling were able to sell over one hundred birdhouses at the Leesburg Flower and Garden Festival, understandably making the festival one of their personal favorites to participate in. Reuling remarked, “I don’t even know how to put it into words. It is delightful. The people are wonderful, and we feel like they’re our friends… It’s such a family feel. It’s a really wonderful, laid back, well-run festival. It’s great.” Participating in an average of ten events per year, the owners of Fly Home Birdhouses are able to promote their business throughout the seasons.

Organizer of the Leesburg Flower and Garden Festival and Town of Leesburg Parks and Recreation Event Coordinator Billy Moffett is a key part of the committee that puts the event together. The festival is full of vibrant colors and a welcoming atmosphere that is “all about plants, flowers, gardening, and outdoor living,” Moffett expressed. With lots to enjoy, the Leesburg Flower and Garden Festival is a way for the community to welcome spring and all that comes with it. “I love watching beautiful historic Downtown Leesburg transformed over Friday night into a sea of colorful flowers, plants, vendors, and landscape displays. It’s equally amazing when it transforms back over just four or five hours on Sunday evening,” Moffett stated. 

While vendors share their flower and garden goods, businesses in downtown Leesburg also utilize the mass of people traveling to the area. Birch Tree Bookstore on West Market street participates in the event every year. Selling houseplants, garden plants, and, of course, books, co-owner Leah Fallon purchased two tents right outside of the Birch Tree Bookstore’s storefront. “You have to kind of watch the calendar for when they choose the date and when they are goin

g to be opening up applications. You have to contact the town of Leesburg, you have to fill out an application, and then you have to be accepted,” Fallon explained. Fallon appreciates the environment that is created by the festival every year as well as the business it brings in for her store. “People are in a really great mood. It’s like a party atmosphere,” Fallon shared. This year, the festival happened to fall on independent bookstore day, Saturday April 26, and Birch Tree bookstore was able to capitalize on the holiday as well as the foot traffic the event resulted in. 

This year’s Leesburg Flower and Garden Festival was a roaring success, thanks to the team of coordinators, volunteers, vendors, and storefronts who participated. Moffett explained that preparation for next year’s festival is already in full swing, stating, “As soon as the festival is over, we begin planning for the next year, locking in major logistics, and communicating with potential sponsors.” With the town blossoming, tourists and locals alike flood the streets to experience the festival that has been carefully planned and presented. With each year bringing in more attendees than the previous ones, it is safe to say that the success of the festival is only increasing.