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Garden Glory: Master gardeners to open gardens to public on June 11
Are you looking for new ideas for your yard or garden, or would you just like to spend a couple of hours next Saturday visiting several Nevada area gardens?
If so, the Vernon County Four Seasons Master Gardeners Club will be hosting "Always in Season ... A Garden Walk" from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday, June 11, in conjunction with Bushwhacker Days. The $8 ticket will get visitors access to seven private gardens, each with the home owner as well as master gardeners available to answer questions, plus an attractive booklet describing each garden. In addition to the private gardens the herb garden at the Bushwhacker Jail is also on the tour for free.
"We want to provide examples and ideas of what people can do in their yards," Cat McGrath-Farmer, a master garden club member, said.
For example McGrath-Farmer has labeled each of her plants.
She said they are encouraging visitors to bring cameras and take photos of the gardens, particularly of things they would like to try.
They are planning to place signs on Austin Street directing visitors to the various gardens, and water to drink at McGrath-Farmer's and Frankie Davis' gardens.
The gardens provide a wide array of different styles that reflect the personalities of the owners and show how they have used location and plant selections to complement each other.
Frankie Davis said that a couple weeks a reporter and photographer from an area television station visited her for a story on the garden walk and after spending several hours there, the photographer, who was enthralled with her garden told her he had seen a lot of the things she used in her design in flea markets, but never knew what to do with the.
And he was going to go home and use some of the ideas he picked up from what she did.
Four of the gardens are clustered in the south central part of Nevada. The other four locations are scattered around the West part of town.
The Millers' garden is located 13314 East Nelson Road, which is behind the Rolling Acres subdivision, west of Nevada. This is a large rural yard with many perennials as well as a variety of trees and shrubs. A part of their yard has been planted in buffalo grass for low maintenance. She also has a 1,000 gallon water tank used to collect rain water to water plants.
The Bushwhacker Jail Herb Garden is located behind the historic jail at 231 N. Main St. and is maintained by the Master Gardeners Club. The garden currently has thyme, fennel, lemon balm, lambs ear, honeysuckle, hollyhocks and a some marigolds for color.
The Pat and Frank Arnold Garden, 1200 W. Hickory, features multiple garden rooms. One has a patriotic theme, another enclosed room provides a seating area to listen to the sounds of rushing water coming from an adjoining room with a water garden.
The Karen Polon and Edward Hyde Garden, 611 South Olive, features a large vegetable garden on the north part of the yard. Closer to the house are numerous flower beds. Karen Polon was fan of Ginny Nash's Stone House Perennials and has marked each plant she purchased their with their names.
The Frankie Davis Garden, 402 South Spring, features a large beige Victorian house trimmed in black, surrounded by a garden. The white picket fence surrounding the yard has red honeysuckle growing on it. A large oak leaf hydrangea is growing in the front yard. Dogwoods, redbuds, and hibiscus and a globe will she brought back from Texas give the garden height and shade. In the back yard is a peaceful water garden adjoining a deck.
The LaMae Bryant Garden, 512 South Main, has a New Dawn Conifer surrounded by bright annuals in the front yard. On the south side of the house is a sun garden and on the west is a shade garden. The garden shows a variety of uses for natural stone boulders.
The Julie Keele Garden, 603 South Main, is described by Keele as "hodge podge, whimsical, eclectic or whatever works, but never boring. If I find a plant that likes a certain spot and it thrives -- it's staying there." The garden currently has over 20 different flowering beds of various sizes. The vegetable garden is fertilized with truckloads of tea leaves and horse manure. Her current favorite spot in the garden is outside her kitchen window overlooking her goldfish and koi pond.
The Cat McGrath-Farmer and Jeffrey Farmer Garden, 904 South Main, has been reclaimed over the last three years from a yard and house that had been unoccupied for seven years. What they think was once a water feature on the north side of the house has been transformed into an herb garden. Since they moved in, they have removed the vines that had overtaken the trees on the property and planted multiple flower beds. A recent addition to yard is a deck overlooking the shady yard that drops off steeply to a creek at the base of the ravine between Main and Ash streets. On the south side of the house Cat has planted several varieties of coneflowers, which have become a favorite of hers.