PORT TOWNSEND — Advance tickets are on sale now for the 2019 Jefferson County Master Gardener Secret Garden Tour on June 15.
The tour, set from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. that day, will feature seven Port Townsend gardens, each with docents on hand to answer questions.
Six of the gardens are at local residences. The exception is the herb garden at the Jefferson Healthcare Medical Center on Sheridan Street.
Tour patrons will have the opportunity to buy gourmet lunches at the medical center’s Garden Row Cafe between 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m.
Tickets are $15 in advance and $20 on the day of the tour. Advance tickets are available online at Brown Paper Ticket or in person at Port Townsend Garden Center, Secret Garden Nursery, Far Reaches Nursery, Shold’s Garden Center, Chimacum Corner Farmstand and Valley Nursery in Poulsbo.
They also will be available the day of the tour at the Jefferson Healthcare waterside parking lot, 843 Sheridan St., Port Townsend.
Patrons are invited to begin their self-guided tours at any of the seven garden locations. Addresses will be available for ticket-holders.
Here are descriptions of the featured gardens.
• Julie and Ralph Squires have transformed the landscape at their North Beach home from barren glacial till to a diverse garden with an array of blooms every day of the year, frequented by songbirds and beneficial insects, organizers said.
After they moved to the site in 2014, they were assisted by Matthew Berberich Horticulture in selecting primarily Pacific Rim plants, a genre that also is deer-resistant.
• Colleen Corrigan has created a woodland garden adjacent to Fort Worden State Park. She discovered that Douglas fir, Cedar trees and shade are the dictators of what would successfully grow in her garden, organizers said.
She replaced the heavy, sticky clay terrain with organic matter, compost, and healthy soil and tucked away in surprising spots salvaged materials such as bricks, wood, metal and pottery.
Walkers and bicyclists on an adjacent public path often stop to admire blue hydrangeas lighting up the backyard, along with shade loving clematis, jasmine, spurges, bleeding heart, deer ferns and ground covers lining the walking paths.
• When Jane Kilburn and Doug Gantenbein moved into their circa-1907 house in 2003, it had a … yard, organizers said.
Since then, the wide expanse of lawn without much definition has become a garden over two and a half lots with an eclectic mix ranging from a shaded Hosta garden to a secluded bamboo grove to large beds with everything from pine trees to Japanese maples, spirea and peonies.
• The Jefferson Healthcare Herb Garden originated in 2012 to support the facility’s Garden Row Café, as part of an integrated approach to health.
Chef Aaran Stark teamed up with garden designer Jill Alban to showcase the hospital’s dedication to local and fresh foods. Now the herb garden includes basil, thyme, bay, tarragon and mint plus edible flowers, rhubarb, an heirloom cherry tree and modern columnar apples.
• Linda Heurtz and Ken Clatterbaugh recreated pasture land and a quackgrass plantation into a small urban garden built around a pond.
The entire lot is the garden that surrounds the house. A thicket with taller trees graces the front with a shade garden in the breezeway. Bushes and roses bloom in the north, while perennials and vegetables grow in the south. The pond with its Arctic and Nishiki willows is a haven for birds and frogs.
• Darin Vercoe’s Habitat for Humanity home was built in 2005 along one of Port Townsend’s public trails.
As a professional landscaper/gardener she was excited to not only qualify for a Habitat home for her young son and herself, but to have a yard and outdoor space she could call her own, organizers said.
On a relatively flat city lot she added elevation changes and paths with gentle curves.
Beds are arranged so a visitor gets only a small peak at the garden at any one time. She has added perennials for a year-round succession of flowers and color.
• When Denise and Allen Owens moved into the 14,000-square-foot property on the edge of town four years ago, they found established fir and madrone trees.
Everything else, including the house, has been added since.
Denise has built stepping stone paths that wind through greenery and blooms. Allen added a mason bee house, which is a constant buzz of activity with mason and leaf cutter bees. Bulbs, young fruit trees, roses, azaleas, hydrangea, raspberry bushes and others mean that one plant or another will be “in full glory” during the tour.
For more information, see the Jefferson County Master Gardener website at jcmgf.org.
