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The 2011 Garden Tour was held July 10 The 2011
garden tour featured eight gardens:
Garden #1 Triangle Park
Mahtomedi’s charming Triangle Park lies in the
center of the downtown area. It is the friendly gathering spot for
the community every Saturday morning for the Farmer’s Market. This
is the first stop on the Garden Tour where many of you will pick up
your Tour tickets. While you are here, be sure to stop across the
street at Coffee Cottage for some coffee or a smoothie and a tasty
treat. Stroll the gardens in the park – enjoy the fragrant
flowers, foliage plants, and flowering vines that spill over the
arbors. You may even be lucky and catch a glimpse of a hummingbird
sipping nectar of the flowers while sitting at one of the picnic
tables. You will see the Veterans Memorial and have a chance to read
a bit of interesting history about Mahtomedi during the streetcar
days.
Garden
#2
This casual pool-side garden is always ready for a
lively summer party! Homeowners Shari and Tom strive for full-season
color, seeking out hardy top performers with big lasting blooms and
bold colors. Forsythias, magnolias and columbine are some of the
early performers, yielding the summer stage to romantic favorites:
pink & white roses and hydrangeas (some planted in advance of last
year’s family backyard wedding), pink, red and white astilbe;
monarda; clematis; hostas; and delphinium. Visitors will also
discover several striking types of sedum, rainbows of daylilies, and
abundant miniature “fields” of bright golden zegreb coreopsis. A
thick layer of mulch limits garden maintenance so the homeowners and
their guests can still find time to enjoy the pool and Minnesota’s
all-too-short summer season.
Garden #3
Heather and Bill built their hilltop home to overlook the water.
It looks down on both Long Lake and a newly constructed waterfall
and pond. Surrounded by carefully tended and colorful
gardens, there is plenty of sun and the plants appreciate it with
color and texture in full measure. There are also many mature trees,
so there are quite a few shade gardens, as well. Builder Bill
constructed retaining walls that are an art in themselves as they
hold perennials. The steps down to the lake past the
dragon-shaped tire swing take you to what was the old road around
the lake, but now has a children's garden and vegetables, which grow
only if the turtles don’t dig them up to lay their eggs! The
shoreline restoration was established with the help of Washington
Conservation District four years ago to help with erosion control.
Look for the unusually-rooted Oak tree on the bluff.
Garden #4
This garden starts the minute you approach the home at the
driveway entrance. The soft greens of the garage and home are
excellent background for the bursts of color. Perennials,
annuals, apple/pear/cherry/lemon trees, a vegetable garden next to a
strawberry patch, and even blueberry bushes. Built on a hill
with both sun and shade gardens, Tricia and Mike’s family home says
comfort and outdoors. Tricia the Master Gardener has employed many
of the rules of good gardening and included a shaded eating area and
a deck filled with pots of changing blooms. The large screen porch
provides a place to rest and enjoy the gardens year round. A work in
progress is the staircase down to the street in the back of the
house and will be another area to add plants from friends and
neighbors.
Garden #5
How many plants can you identify on your way up to this garden of
treasured plants? In soil as black and rich as ever seen, the
garden has many varieties of very healthy shade plants, including
many natives and blooming beauties. Enjoy Beth and Bill’s gardens as
music wafts from the open windows. See the morning glory wall
that provides color to the outdoor dining area near the 1940’s
restored pond housing frolicking fish. Enjoy Canadian anemone,
Mayapple, hosta, roses, lilies, Queen Anne’s lace, woodland plants,
columbine, plume poppies, perennial geraniums, gorgeous ninebark and
more.
Garden #6
This beautiful owner-designed home and gardens bordering a wildlife
pond were started eleven years ago on a ten acre site that was once
filled with buckthorn and sumac. Deb and Pete’s many gardens,
a greenhouse, a waterfall, prairie, a rose garden are a good example
of what good planning and hard work can produce. Perennials
produce an ever-changing feast and annuals underline the various
gardens for color punch. Tulip beds evolve into color as their bulbs
sleep and annuals play in the sun. Learn about the Naked Lady Lily
that came from their family farm. See the waterfall with its celery
plant. You will want to walk the gardens again and again. It is hard
to take it all in the first time.
Garden #7
From the street you would never guess the artistry of gardens and
bird sanctuary. You will note the tall wall of huge rocks on the
right and the colorful plants like the Big Daddy begonia welcoming
you. But be ready see breathtaking prairie, roses, perennials,
herbs and inside plants brought outside for the summer. Reid loves
music and marries it with color, texture, fragrance and bird song
and calls. Amazing is the only way to describe what he has created.
As you climb the flagstone steps to the upper gardens it just gets
better as every inch of space is utilized both right and left. At
the top, the table for two invites you to look over the golf course
and the Tamarisk Road pond. Walk through the bog sanctuary on mowed
paths and see many bird houses, and even a fox den. See your map to
show where you park and enter by Tamarisk pond. You will enter
from the golf course side of the backyard, and feel the tranquility
of beauty and design of the course and gardens.
Garden #8 - Dellwood Hills Golf Club
One of Minnesota's most highly rated golf clubs, Dellwood is also a
professionally designed collection of gardens. Enjoy the
clubhouse gardens by starting with the center island expanse
designed by Windsor Company. It consists about 8,000 purple and
white petunias hand planted by the staff led by long time club
gardener, Colleen. By the first hole see the "bride’s
garden" designed by Heins Landscaping's Brad Hanson that has been
immortalized in many wedding pictures. Maple trees and grasses
shield incoming golfers on the 18th hole from vehicles in the
parking lot. Outside of the main dining room the patio looks down on
a hill planted with huge black rocks and perennials that require
very little water. After your tour enjoy lemonade and cookies or a
glass of purchased wine.
Here's a look back at the
2009
Garden Tour a "scent"-sational success!
Mahtomedi
Garden
Club to present
“Something for Everyone” Garden Tour
Here's a look at the eight gardens
included in this year's tour:
The
2009 "Something for Everyone" Garden Tour
Garden 1
The Mahtomedi
Area Community Garden was started in 2008 by a small group of
residents who came together with the desire to produce locally
grown, organic, healthy foods. The
garden is supported by ISD 832 Community Ed and has had special
assistance from Mary George and the City of Mahtomedi Public Works
Department. By
reducing the use of synthetic chemicals, and minimizing food energy
miles, the results benefit both people and the environment.
Due to soil conditions and a gas pipeline running diagonally
through the site, the gardeners decided that a raised bed was the
best way to go. The
garden’s construction was completed in July 2008, and the plot was
filled with mulch in August. Luke
Schroeder, a local Scout, built
the fence as his Eagle Scout project.
The garden has five plots, four are reserved for the
original members, and one serves as an edible classroom for ISD 832
pre-school and elementary students.
Garden
2
Shade
gardens under lovely mature oaks have replaced much of the lawn in
this peaceful woodland garden. This one-acre
property borders a pond. The homeowners, Jackie and Steve, were
concerned about water run off, so they began working with Blue
Thumb - Planting for Water Quality. Blue Thumb is a collaborative
branch of Rice Creek Watershed District and partner, in this
case, Washington Conservation District. With the help of those
organizations, they recently installed two shade rain gardens
landscaped with native plants and a meandering dry creek bed
constructed of stones. The next project will be a permeable driveway
and shoreline restoration using more native plants.
Garden 3
Where
once there was a rollercoaster, now there are gardens!
This gorgeous lake home is relatively new, and so are the
gardens, but they are no less lovely for it!
As you approach the house, you’ll notice hardy perennials
like sage and rudbeckia, along with redbud trees and a variety of
other trees and shrubs. On
the lakeside of the house, there are perennial gardens with annuals
and a few veggies mixed in. As
you go around to the west side of the house, you’ll see The
Moonlight Garden, full of white flowering plants like astilbe,
azaleas, & dahlias which glow on moonlit evenings.
The homeowners, Gene and Marcia, have planted native flowers
along the pond (where the rollercoaster was!).
They spread seeds and welcome whatever comes up.
Garden
4
This
beautifully remodeled lakeside home has a newly installed Japanese
garden in the front yard. The
front garden has wooden walkways illuminated by custom-made light
fixtures with hand-blown glass made by Bruce Stowell, a
relative of the homeowner. A
sculpture by Minnesota artists Dan and Lee Ross is also
featured in this garden. There
are several striking specimen bonsai-style shrubs and also a dry
pond, both of which are traditional in Japanese gardens.
The white gravel in the pond bed represents water.
Follow the path around to the lakeside of the house, where
you’ll find lovely perennial beds and fire pit by the lake.
Garden
5
It all started
with three $12 evergreens and an overpriced birch bought from “the
back of some guy’s truck”. When
the house was new, the homeowners, Gloria and Doug, spread
wildflower seeds because covering the whole yard with sod was not in
the budget, and now that wildflower bed is a large, free-flowing
garden! This yard has
wonderful sun and shade beds full of perennials, shrubs, and
annuals, including a variety of coral bells (heuchera), and
hydrangeas - the gorgeous climbing hydrangea is a favorite plant of
Gloria’s. Wander
around to the back garden, too, which was recently redone a bit to
include a fence to help keep out unwanted late night garden
visitors.
Garden
6
You
can’t miss this beautiful front yard garden. Mindy
and Craig's garden is a mixture of formal and cottage style. Craig
is originally from Australia and is a nurseryman by trade. All the
gardens are slightly mounded in the middle, which gives them more
dimension and a feeling of rolling hills.
He likes very tidy garden edges, which he creates by doing a
Victorian edging, very typical in Australia. This gives the garden a
formal feel, while Mindy tends to plant eye-catching perennials here
and there with no real plan in mind, making for more of a
cottage-style garden. They both like to supplement their perennial
plantings with annuals to create colorful borders and to splash
lasting color around the garden.
Garden 7
This amazing
garden on the lake (see
photo above) is a combination of a wide variety of shrubs
& perennials including a stunning ‘Lavender Mist’ meadow
rue, seven different types of hydrangeas and over 20 varieties of
heuchera. Paths separate
the back yard into six magnificent garden beds, some shady, some
sunny, with a lovely 6-foot fountain as a focal point in the center.
There are also several side gardens to wander through.
If you get lost, the homeowners, Bob & Diane and their
two dogs will find you. Don’t
miss this one – there truly is something for everyone here in this
spectacular half-acre garden!
Garden 8
This
woodsy, whimsical garden has a beautiful pond with cascading
waterfalls in the back yard, but don’t hurry back there too
quickly – you’ll want to linger in this garden!
Lisa and Roger have planted a prairie near the road in the
front yard, and as you make your way up the drive toward the house,
you will see the herb garden and surrounding perennial and shrub
beds. Follow the path (and the sound of falling water) around the
deck and you’ll see the pond & waterfalls complete with
goldfish and koi. Keep
wandering – there are many fabulous garden areas to discover.
Look for The Blue Garden, the shade gardens, and the iron
gazebo covered with ‘William Baffin’ roses.
There is even something growing in the stove!
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