Annual Petals and Pathways tour set for Saturday

SEQUIM — The Petals and Pathways Home Garden tour sponsored by the Master Gardener Foundation of Clallam County will highlight five landscaped home gardens along with the Master Gardeners’ Demonstration Garden from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.

Purchase tickets

Tickets are $15 prior to the tour and $20 on tour day and can be purchased from local Master Gardeners and at the WSU Extension office, Airport Garden Center, Green House Nursery, Port Book and News, Over the Fence, Sunny Farms, Nash’s, Peninsula Nursery, The Co-Op Farm and Garden and online at www.brownpapertickets.com.

Tickets for the self-guided tour include descriptions of each garden and driving instructions.

The gardens can be visited in any order.

‘Carefully selected’

“These gardens are carefully selected for their diversity in gardening and landscape techniques, design, and accessibility,” organizers said.

”There will be something to delight and enrich everyone who attends from perennial terracing and vegetables, to gentle relaxing streams and wildlife sanctuary areas.”

This year’s gardens are:

Early Bird Creek

Just 10 years ago, this property was a cow pasture. Now attendees will find a multifaceted garden hewn from fields that were once overgrown with horsetail, organizers said.

“The garden seamlessly enhances the native features, which were exposed by hard work, including a stream, a small pond and beautiful views of Sequim Bay,” according to a press release.

The garden incorporates many unique plants; at least 90 percent were brought over from Kent and transplanted by the owners with a greenhouse made of recycled wood, also salvaged from Kent.

Visitors will find unique trees such as a katsura, ginko, Garry oak and espaliered Braeburn apple. Along with more common plants such as bear’s breech, lavender and pieris there are black beauty elderberry, corkscrew willow and more than 350 summer blooming bulbs.

A Nod to the Pacific Northwest

This garden is designed in Pacific Northwest style with an eye to scale on a small estate and both mountain and sea views.

“Meticulous planning is evident as original plantings done 15 years ago were selected and spaced for how the landscape would look as the garden matured,” organizers said.

Many of the plants are evergreens, including rhododendrons, Davidii viburnum, and Douglas fir.

As visitors walk down the driveway, ornamental plums and heather are to the left with a ground cover of kinnikinick to the right.

Entering the gate to the garden, seating is under a large arbor festooned with purple wisteria.

Japanese maples, pieris japonica, coral bells, lupines, and mock orange are only a few of the plantings spaced throughout the landscape.

A water feature with water plants streams and cascades around the yard. The cobbled pathway winds alongside down the hillside. As it is somewhat steep, appropriate shoes are required.

Backyard Wildlife Sanctuary

This is a garden favoring native plants as well as others that support birds, butterflies and other pollinators.

The property has been developed with a “live and let live” philosophy: “If it gets planted there or volunteers, it grows there,” organizers said.

Graveled paths wend their way throughout the 1.3-acre garden, which is maintained without chemical pesticides. Only organic/natural remedies are utilized, as is the “green cone” method for composting on site.

“The property boasts a spectacular paper bark maple as well as a beautiful dawn redwood, and a variety of fruit trees, including apple, kiwi, pear, cherry and pear,” organizers said.

While the driveway is lined with alternating escalonia, laurel and hebes, at the rear of the property there is a fenced area with blueberries and raspberries utilizing bird-safe protection for the fruits.

A River Runs Through It

This is the second time the tour has featured this 5-acre Dungeness River property. Then the garden was 5 years old and now it has 18 years of growth.

However, the owner has planted a tree or shrub every year since building the home in 2001 — gingko, rose of sharon hibiscus, red twig dogwood, laburnum golden chain, eastern redbud, draping pussy willow, contorted filbert, American sweetgum liquidambar and pyracantha to name a few.

Many native plants can be found here — Pacific madrone, Indian plum, mountain ash, Oregon grape along with oakleaf hydrangea, rugosa rose, firs, cedars, and snowberries.

There is also a purple iron flower “bed” planted with daisies, seasonal bulbs and a yellow Cape Cod Fuchsia. The front entrance arbor provides support for wisteria and climbing roses.

Master Gardener Demonstration Garden

The Woodcock Garden is the jewel in the crown of the Master Gardeners’ endeavors.

The mission of the Master Gardeners is to provide education and this garden amply provides that experience.

There are decorative dahlia beds, a charming cottage garden, pollinator garden, a rose garden and a small orchard with examples of fruit trees easily grown in this area.

Native plants are always emphasized with their best uses throughout the area along with wetland information.

Attendees are urged to bring plant questions to the Plant Clinic between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Picnic tables are available at the garden for attendees with a picnic lunch. This is the only area of the tour that provides a portable toilet.

A Taste of England

This English and woodland garden was inspired by the owners’ many years in England. Their previous garden was featured on national television and in several garden magazine articles including “Country Garden.”

As visitors enter the front garden, they will see a purple fence surrounding the property to enhance the garden flowers and a woodland path full of trillium, hosta, hellebores, blue poppies and primroses.

A dry stream bed meanders to a frog garden.

Throughout the garden, visitors will see large beds of flowers.

Spring brings a riot of color from thousands of bulbs, beginning with dainty snowdrops to English bluebells, Dutch irises, lilies, and tiger flowers. Roses and clematis climb trellises to delight the eye, while a wide variety of perennials pop with color. Fuchsias provide summer color and are featured throughout the garden.

Year-round interest is highlighted by a variety of trees including pink kousa dogwoods, Japanese maples, a golden chain as well as apple and plum trees.