WHAT'S HAPPENING

What a way to complete your Thursday - a brilliant sunset, aromatic wines, live jazz, and friends - all set in the newly expanded rose garden at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden.

Responding to visitor and member requests to extend garden hours during the summer, the Flowers After 5 event stretches the botanical garden's usual close time from 5 to 9 p.m. on Thursdays in July, August and September.

July 3 was the kickoff for the summer season.

Catering to all ages, this popular Richmond spot provides not only entertainment, but also educational opportunities. And it promotes the best in landscaping design and strives to be the leader in botanical and applied horticultural research.

The Flowers After 5 plaza is the Rose Belvedere. Its wide terrace and shady, stone pavilions offered picturesque lakeside views of the garden. Soaking up afternoon sun, couples, families and friends strolled the paths among the 1,800 fragrant rose bushes.

Wine supervisor Richard Carew and Walter Bell of Total Wine & More kept the wine glasses filled with a distinctive selection of wines including two German wines - a fruity Petals Riesling and an easy-drinking medium body Red Petals (a Dornfelder) - and from Washington, a crisp, chilled Sweet Pea apple wine with peach.

Contributing to the mellow glow were the soothing sounds of jazz: bass player Rusty Farmer, keyboard artist Anthony Dowd and guitarist John Conley, an alumnus of the VCU Jazz Studies Program.

Ample tables, chairs, wooden benches and low stone walls invited visitors to linger and relax as they sipped their wine and dined on sandwiches, salads, fruit and cheese trays from the E. Claiborne Robins Visitors Center Garden Café. For folks preferring to dine in, the Robins Tea House offered a full-service restaurant. Meriwether Godsey is caterer for the garden.

Jennifer and Robert Winslow have been coming to this event since it began in 2005. While sampling wines, they paused to comment, "It's convenient - just 10 minutes from where we work. We've attended nearly every week during the seasons and it gets busier and busier each time we come. We really enjoy it and wouldn't want to miss it!"

During Fidos After 5, in partnership with the Richmond SPCA on Aug. 14 and Sept. 11, visitors will be allowed to bring their leashed pets to the garden.

Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden is at 1800 Lakeside Ave. For more information, www.lewisginter.org or (804) 262-9887.