PORT TOWNSEND — Seven Port Townsend “secret gardens” are on display for the public today (Saturday, June 22).
Organizers hope the tour will both delight visitors and maybe provide an example to new gardening masterpieces.
The theme for the Secret Garden Tour is “beautiful and bountiful.”
The tour will feature both the traditional “beautiful” ornamental gardens as well as “bountiful” gardens that produce fruits and vegetables for the table, said Diane Threlkeld, Master Gardener and co-chair of the Secret Garden Tour.
Many of them provide unique, easy concepts that may provide inspiration for novice or amateur gardeners, Threlkeld said.
“These are things they could go home and do,” she said.
Threlkeld said this year’s gardens are not created by professional landscapers but are “really personal gardens” homeowners gradually developed on their own.
“They have turned dirt into wonderful things,” she said.
Tours begin at 10 a.m.
The self-guided tour will begin at 10 a.m. Gardens will close at 4 p.m.
Tickets are available for $20 at www.secretgardenjeffco.org.
Online tickets and same-day tickets can be picked up between 9 a.m. and noon today at the ticket table outside the Port Townsend Visitor Center, 440 12th St.
For more information, phone Threlkeld at 360-379-1172 or visit www.secretgardenjeffco.org.
Locations and maps of the gardens will be available with ticket purchase, and a plant sale will be accessible without a ticket at 350 18th St.
The Secret Garden Tour is presented by the Jefferson County Master Gardener Foundation and Washington State University Jefferson County Extension.
Proceeds from the tour go toward the Master Gardeners Grant and Scholarship Fund, which provides grants of up to $1,500 for community gardening projects that benefit residents of the county, as well as scholarships for horticulture training and majors, Threlkeld said.
One of the projects funded by the grant provides volunteers to harvest fruit from trees that aren’t harvested by their owners, and the fruit is sent to local schools, she said.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.
