Ashland Nature Center

Delaware’s Gateway to Native Habitats and Natural Education

Trails, Wetlands, Wildlife, and Hands-On Nature Programming in the Heart of Hockessin

Less than a mile from Mt. Cuba Center on Barley Mill Road in Hockessin, Ashland Nature Center offers something the botanical garden doesn’t — mud. Beaver ponds. Red-tailed hawks. Monarch butterflies being tagged for their migration south. Ashland is the flagship property of the Delaware Nature Society, the state’s leading environmental education and conservation organization, and it functions as both a working nature center and one of the most active outdoor education facilities in New Castle County.

Ashland Nature Center trails are open daily, year-round, dawn to dusk. The visitor center is open Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m. Trail access is free for Delaware Nature Society members. Non-member trail fees apply; verify current pricing at delawarenaturesociety.org. Programs, events, and school programs have separate fees and typically require advance registration.

The Delaware Nature Society and Ashland’s History

The Delaware Nature Society was founded in 1964 as a grassroots response to the rapid suburban development transforming northern New Castle County. A group of naturalists, educators, and concerned citizens came together to establish an organization dedicated to connecting Delawareans with the natural world through education, advocacy, and land conservation.

Ashland Nature Center became the society’s flagship property — a working landscape of meadows, forests, wetlands, and creek bottomland along the Red Clay Creek corridor, providing habitat for a remarkable diversity of native species within minutes of Wilmington’s suburbs. The center has grown from a modest educational facility into a year-round programming hub that serves tens of thousands of schoolchildren, families, homeschoolers, and adult naturalists annually.

The Delaware Nature Society now manages multiple properties across the state and has been central to open space conservation efforts throughout the Brandywine Valley and Red Clay Creek watershed for over 60 years.

The Habitats of Ashland

Ashland’s approximately 130 acres encompass a variety of distinct habitat types, each supporting different wildlife communities and offering different educational and recreational experiences:

Beaver Pond and Wetlands

Ashland’s beaver ponds are one of its most beloved features — active wetland systems managed by the resident beaver population that create rich edge habitat for waterfowl, turtles, frogs, herons, and a diverse cast of invertebrates. The pond overlook is a reliably productive wildlife watching spot at any season.

Native Meadows

Ashland’s meadow restoration areas are managed for native grasses and wildflowers, providing critical habitat for pollinators and migrating birds. The center’s fall Monarch butterfly tagging program — one of the most popular public events on the calendar — takes place in these meadows as the butterflies move south through Delaware on their way to Mexico.

Upland Forest

Second-growth deciduous forest covers much of the higher ground at Ashland, supporting woodland wildflowers, migratory warblers in spring, and resident species including barred owls, red-tailed hawks, and white-tailed deer throughout the year.

Red Clay Creek Corridor

The Red Clay Creek runs along the edge of Ashland’s property — the same creek that connects the site to Greenbank Mills and Auburn Heights Mansion further upstream. Creek-side trails offer access to aquatic habitat and one of the most ecologically significant waterways in northern Delaware, now significantly recovered from decades of industrial pollution.

Programs and Education at Ashland Nature Center

Ashland’s programming calendar is among the most active of any nature center in the mid-Atlantic region:

School Programs Curriculum-aligned field trips for Pre-K through 12th grade covering ecology, life science, earth science, and environmental literacy. Programs are designed around Delaware science standards and are available for public, private, charter, and homeschool groups.

Public Programs and Events A year-round calendar of public programming includes:

• Monarch Butterfly Tagging — fall migration programs where visitors participate in the scientific tagging of monarchs in cooperation with national monitoring programs
• Owl Prowls — evening programs listening and looking for owls in the woodland, offered seasonally
• Native Plant Sales — spring and fall sales of Delaware Nature Society-recommended native plants for home gardens
• Summer Nature Camps for children ages 4–14, with multi-week sessions covering different ecological themes
• BioBlitz and Citizen Science Events — community-based species documentation programs contributing to regional biodiversity databases
• Adult Field Trips and Natural History Workshops — birdwatching walks, fungi forays, wildflower identification programs, and more

Homeschool Programs: Monthly homeschool-specific programming using the center’s habitats as outdoor classrooms.

Wildlife at Ashland: What to Watch For

Ashland’s location in the Red Clay Creek valley, at the junction of multiple habitat types, makes it one of the best accessible wildlife watching sites in New Castle County across all seasons:

• Spring: Migratory warblers, wildflowers, spring peepers and wood frogs in the wetlands, returning swallows
• Summer: Active beaver pond, nesting birds, dragonflies and damselflies, butterfly diversity in the meadows
• Fall: Monarch butterfly migration through the meadows, hawk watching, fall wildflower peak in the meadows
• Winter: Resident owls, overwintering waterfowl on the pond, winter bird feeding stations at the visitor center

Ashland in the Red Clay Valley and Hockessin Area

Ashland Nature Center sits within a remarkable cluster of natural and cultural sites along the Barley Mill Road/Red Clay Creek corridor — within easy driving distance of Mt. Cuba Center (less than a mile south on Barley Mill Road), the Wilmington and Western Railroad and Greenbank Mills (a few miles south), and Auburn Heights Mansion (further upstream in Yorklyn). Together these sites form one of the most rewarding half-day to full-day itineraries available in northern New Castle County, equally appealing to families, naturalists, history enthusiasts, and anyone who has simply run out of reasons not to get outside.

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