Horticultural Society Members Tour: Part One

Each year the members of our horticultural society host a mid-July self-guided garden tour to show off their own gardens. Mid-July tours come with lots of apologies: If only you could have seen what was blooming here just two weeks ago! But, of course, we all know what was blooming two weeks ago because we're all gardeners in the same area. So we share the pain. It's a bonding experience for those of us who garden in solitude.

This first garden on the tour ended up being one of my favourites. It's one of those gardens where you step into the back yard and just gasp. A happy gasp, not an asthmatic one. The yard is not really huge (about 50' deep by 70' wide) but there was so much to see and such fantastic height to the plants. I love it when you can turn slightly and see the plants forming a whole other complementary grouping. This garden has lots of those unexpected angles. The gardener was also very knowledgeable and contagiously enthusiastic. I wanted to run home right then and move a bunch of plants around.

I'm the distorted blob in the middle of the gazing ball (click on any pic for a larger view--but not this one!-lol):
This path starts where you enter the back garden. Even in small gardens, those little pathways give it the Secret Garden factor that many of us love:
I'm totally digging these multi-unit bird houses (left in picture below). I think pretty soon I'll have to get busy and see what one woman with some pine boards, a hammer and saw can come up with:
It's hard to tell the size in this photo, but a few people on this tour had these massive concrete planters (about 4' in diameter). They must have all got them from the same place or taught each other how to make them. This one has mosses in it which looks great as a lawn for the log house. Others filled them with their one show of annuals. They're really striking:
Those tall goosey-necked plants in the back are about ten feet tall! The bee balm also had a splendid season this year:
See the massive wall/building at the back of the property? It's a storage facility for some business on another street. The gardener said there's no noise from it and it just provides this very private backdrop. I like that. Her shed holds both tools and a sleeping area which gave it instant induction into the Garden Shed Hall of Fame:

The next garden on the tour has a really large and photogenic pond, right in the middle of a suburban subdivision. Stay tuned. Same bat time, same bat channel.

Want to see more gardens? There's a complete listing of my virtual garden tours here. Visit the Garden Shed Hall of Fame. I keep track of garden weirdness here. Garden art/junk projects are here.