Our new garden on tour, 21 July 2012

first would-be guests

The day before our tour day, rain and wind had me quite worried.  Of course we spent all day working on our garden despite the weather.

I had told the tour organizer that I wanted to be on the tour either this year or in ten years.  Because it is impressive to say “This garden is only one and a half years old” and demonstrate how quickly a garden can be created.  It would not be so impressive as a NEW garden after two and a half years.

Tour day dawned hot and lovely and two guests were already outside the gate by 8 AM.

refreshments

One of the most fun things this year had been that my friends and ALMOST gardening neighbours down the street (sadly not RIGHT next door) were also on tour.  Judy and I had many discussions regarding what food to serve, as neither of us wanted to COOK anything, but we did want the guests to feel welcome.  It is not required to put out food, but we had heard another garden was offering sushi, and felt we, on the flatlands, had to make an effort.  (In a later post, you will get to tour her garden as well.)   We had juice in a jug and bottled of water in a wheelbarrow full of ice.

Allan and I served several kinds of cookies, including some made by our dear next door neighbour, Nora, and his favourite, red licorice. A friend commented that the declassé red licorice was perfect for the working class Ilwaco flatlands.  Above left,  you can see the first group of tour goers goggling over Allan’s lovely fern garden. All told, we had about 500 guests.

view from my screened window as the tour begins

Randy Brown

Because the tour is a benefit for Water Music Festival, each garden gets a musician. We were fortunate to be assigned Randy Brown, a man with a delightful sense of humour and winning personality.  Most of the time he used the patio as his stage but he did a bit of musical wandering in the garden.  Allan made a video of him improvising a garden song…You can watch it here.

Guests began to pour in on the dot of ten a.m. and kept a steady flow all day.

patio stage

I did not take many photos because the plant questions kept me hopping all day long.  In fact, I did so much talking in the hot sun that my lips got sunburned.  I realized later that most of the time when I am outside I am looking down at plants, not up at people.

Having so many appreciative gardeners walking through gave us much joy, and I was thrilled when many who had worked their way from north on the Peninsula to south, our being their last garden, said that ours was their favourite.

garden photographer

In fact, we heard several times, as did our friends Judy and Tom down the street in their tour garden, that Ilwaco ruled the tour and that Lake Street was the best.  It was especially gratifying because every other garden except for mine and Allan’s and Judy and Tom’s had a staff, or at least a paid gardener or friends helping out.  Ours were the only two that were solely and completely created and cared for by the owners.  And to further toot our own horns, Tom was going through chemo every other week while preparing for the tour (he’s fine now!) and Allan and I were also working full time.

I would love to see the many photos that I observed being taken.  I did get a few photos from friends…and would like more.

One particular thrill was having a guest introduce herself as garden celebrity Jolly Butler, someone who actually knows my ultimate gardening mentor-from-afar, Ann Lovejoy, whose lectures originally inspired my fulltime devotion to horticulture.  It had become clear to me after some pondering that the only right name for my garden boat was the “Ann Lovejoy”.

l will make another post following this one with more details of the garden.  I like to go all out for a garden tour with every inch of the garden weeded (which is why I am always amazed when I tour a garden that has weedy patches).  Naturally, one of the first guests pointed out to me a three foot tall dwarf fireweed that I had missed, and as I walked around I did see other flaws.  I put out a photo of my mom in her garden, and one of my grandmother, and a pile of my favourite gardening books.  A friend got a photo showing the photo of my mother and, in the background on the right, a guest leafing through one of my favourite gardening book inspirations, Shocking Beauty by Thomas Hobbs.

photo by Kathleen Sayce

All day long, I talked plants, and talked and talked…

guests

more talking

and talked…and talked…and talked…  My face blindness hampered me from recognizing people out of context, so between that and the large number of people, by the end of the day I had only a vague idea of which local people had actually visited.  I know that some good friends came through and (while I would have recognized them), I was so busy I did not even see them.

People checked out the entire garden from front to back, so all that weeding had been quite worthwhile.  In my next entries, I’ll take you on a tour  throughout the whole garden as it looked its absolute best.

from my window

and again a window view

south end of sunny borders

center path

up the west side path

exploring the bogsy wood

Join me in my next blog entries for a walk through of the garden in its moment of perfection.  We gardeners all know that perfection in a garden is fleeting but oh so satisfactory.  Following that, I will share the other featured gardens which I visited on a pre- and post-tour day.