SEQUIM — Tickets are on sale for the 2013 Petals & Pathways Garden Tour, which will feature seven private gardens Saturday, June 29.
The self-guided tour of gardens in the Sequim area will be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Locations of the gardens will be revealed only with the purchase of a ticket.
Advance tickets are $15 and can be purchased in Sequim, Port Angeles and Port Townsend.
Tickets will be $20 the day of the tour.
The gardens have been chosen to show how gardeners have coped with a variety of problems and terrain features that range from tiny spaces to flat, open areas to rugged and steep hillsides, said Mary Flo Bruce of the Clallam County Master Gardeners, who are presenting the tour.
The tour of the gardens will move from an area near Kitchen-Dick Road around to Marine Drive, on to the SunLand area and then up to Bell Hill.
Some of the gardens are the product of a decade or more of effort, while others have been established recently, Bruce said.
Bruce described the seven gardens on the tour.
They are:
— Walt and Sara Johnson have used stones from their property to make a low wall that curves along the driveway alongside a pump-fed stream leading to a pond accented with flowering cherry trees.
They have an extensive composting system that supports their annual and perennial plantings, lawns and orchard trees, Bruce said.
— Tom and Irma Colvin have turned 3 acres of pasture grass into a large garden with dwarf conifers, ornamental grasses and an enclosed orchard.
The garden has yard art, mounded planting beds, blueberries and a raised-bed vegetable garden.
It has a view across the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Victoria and an eagle nest high in a tree snag.
— Doreen Petersen has converted a small lot of solid clay into a woodland retreat with more than 45 Japanese maples as well as clump bamboo, ferns hellebores, grasses and many other species.
“She has constructed an eye-catching grouping of white-barked birches and irises in the front yard,” Bruce said.
“In addition, she has devised a simple and unobtrusive but effective method of keeping deer out of her plantings.”
— Marty and Ellen LaMarr are creating an earth- and wildlife-friendly small garden that requires relatively little labor for upkeep, Bruce said.
A 41-year-old bridge built by Ellen’s father and surrounded by columbine is the focal point. The garden is served by a drip irrigation system on a timer.
“Pest control is accomplished with thoughtful companion planting and the use of copper to deter slugs,” Bruce said, creating a “haven for birds of many kinds.”
— A series of pathways that are sometimes steep — and most comfortably walked in shoes with traction — take visitors past seven pools, waterfalls, decorative fencing and whimsical examples of yard art in the garden of Larry and Marilynn Elliott.
The pools are accented with a coral bark maple, flowering plums, Cryptomeria, black mondo grass, a weeping white pine and a blue Atlas cedar.
— Winding paths and ponds also are featured in the garden of Byron and Sharan Childs.
One pond has a working waterwheel. Magnolias, maples, rhodies and Ceanothus are flourishing. Bulbs and perennials provide a panorama of color.
Sages, fuchsias and other nectar plants attract butterflies and hummingbirds.
— Bob and Linda Beatty have constructed a garden area with a view of the San Juan Islands, Victoria, the Strait, the Dungeness Spit and the New Dungeness Lighthouse.
Shoes with traction are recommended for the steep terrain as meandering pathways weave among pools, Japanese maples, a golden chain tree, rhodies, heathers and evergreens thriving amongst plantings of kinnikinnick, as well as a fountain filled with water from a hillside brook.
Advance tickets are available at the Washington State University Extension office at the Clallam County Courthouse and at businesses, including Peninsula Nursery, McComb’s Garden, Over the Fence, Red Rooster Grocery, Sunny Farms Country Store, Vision Nursery, Airport Garden Center, Country Aire, Port Book and News, Gross’s Nursery & Florist, the Greenhouse Nursery, at all Master Gardener plant clinics and in Port Townsend at Henery’s Garden Center.
Tickets also are available for purchase online at www.gardentour.brownpapertickets.com.
