PORT ANGELES — The Petals & Pathways Home Garden Tour will present a broad spectrum of garden styles at eight Port Angeles homes Saturday.
The self-guided tour, sponsored by the Master Gardener Foundation of Clallam County, will be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Tickets for the self-guided tour include descriptions of each garden and driving instructions.
The gardens can be visited in any order. Three of the gardens are located on one block, providing access from one parking location.
Tickets are $15 prior to the tour and $20 the day of the tour.
Several urban lots showcase gardening in small spaces.
A 2-acre property features private outdoor living spaces.
Hybrid rose bushes, prolific vegetable and berry beds and unique conifer collections are hallmarks of the tour.
Model raised-bed gardening, pollinator-friendly environments and imaginative integration of garden art are demonstrated throughout these gardens.
Landscape features vary, from drought-tolerant plantings and dry streambeds to modest water features.
Here are descriptions of the gardens featured in this year’s tour:
■ Amid the traffic, sirens and people of central Port Angeles, Marge Upham’s garden at 623 E. Fifth St. is filled with more than 140 roses, as well as bulbs, perennials, vegetables, berries and nut and fruit trees.
The gardener, with roots in a farm in rural western Oregon, values the old cottage-styled garden.
Many of the roses are selected hybrids. Others are from farmstead cuttings, the homeowner’s prizes being 1843 and 1854 moss roses, the cuttings of which came from her great grandfather’s grave.
The garden is enclosed behind cedar fencing, the paths are rustic mica slate and there is a koi pond on a lower level patio.
■ Pat Wheatley’s transformation of this large Madrone-dominated property at 1930 Hamilton Way began two years ago.
Surrounding and complementing those trees are six large beds filled with evergreens, specimen blooming trees, shrubs and perennials.
Wide wheelchair-accessible paths wind through the beds, allowing visitors to see drip-system watered vegetable and berry raised beds.
A cement table and benches with Oriental accents and a small pond with water trickling off large cement leaves provide a private spot partially sheltered by espaliered fruit trees.
A narrow grass strip in back is home to horseshoe pits, the picket-fenced compost pile and the clematis and other vining plants along the fence.
Three gardens are on Rook Drive. Visitors can park once and view all three.
■ Nadine Snover has created a succession of intimate gardens at 1328 Rook Drive that borrow views of trees and landscaping on nearby properties.
When purchased in 2010, the property was flat, barren and muddy, with a swamp in the backyard and only a small patch of grass in front.
The grass was replaced with river rock. Fencing, decks and large rocks have been installed throughout, and layers of plants have been added to the landscape.
Conifers and ferns form the basic palette, offering a range of texture and color from bright lime to darkest green.
Daffodils, violas, hellebores and heuchera provide additional color through the seasons.
The Japanese maples add shade and a blast of red in spring and summer; they turn every shade of orange in the fall.
■ At 1329 Rook Drive is a tranquil oasis nurtured by Donna and Lon Kollath.
The English cottage-style garden is surrounded on two sides by wetlands that provide a backdrop to the peaceful yard and a home to a wide array of birds.
A meandering capstone wall sets off the yard landscaped with flowering trees, bushes and shrubs, ornamental flowers and moss-edged walking stones.
The rock work showcases a wide variety of plants including heather, lavender, tea roses, lilies, hydrangeas, columbine and sedum, interspersed with ornamental grasses, ferns and blueberry bushes.
A waterfall surrounded by ferns and shrubs cascades over rocks and ledges.
■ Jerry Stewart faced a challenge on property at 1335 Rook Drive: find a way to retain the property’s character and complement the neighbor’s landscaping yet not block the vista of the wetlands.
The south side of the house — hot with little wind — was the most difficult.
The design of two dry streambeds on the property help pull water runoff away from the house and drain the landscape to the wetlands area.
A deck was extended with a rock wall ramp access.
The conifer collection and shrubs on the east side of the house, chosen for their beauty and shape, are illuminated with Christmas lights during the winter.
The west side, landscaped for the birds with a bubbling fountain and a standing birdbath, bustles with bird song.
■ When organic gardeners Midge and David James moved to Port Angeles from Southern California a year and a half ago, little did they know their 2.8-acre property at 5323 Mountain Terrace Way would be featured on the next garden tour.
They have had one season to get to know the variety of landscape plants that came with the property — including more than 60 rhododendrons.
They have refurbished the raised vegetable beds at the front of the property and reworked the blackberry and raspberry beds.
In addition to their 100 percent organic approach to gardening, the homeowners have maintained the productivity of their garden while cutting water usage.
■ Terry Targett’s brick rambler home at 1133 E. Ninth St., which has a view of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, has been in the family for three generations.
Several of the plants date back more than 40 years.
Extensive renovation began about four years ago.
New plants include four dwarf conifers, Oregon grape, evergreen huckleberry, Japanese barberry, lavatera, bunchberry and Hart’s tongue fern.
Bulbs include early, middle and late blooming daffodils, hyacinths, snowdrops, species crocus and species tulips.
The landscape design blends drought-tolerant plants with the extensive use of rocks and other hard-scape materials.
■ Eight years ago, Sandy Ulf transformed an urban, steeply sloped lot at 1613 E. Fourth St. from a construction site into a garden featuring ornamentals, stately trees and a vegetable garden.
Ulf terraced the slope to allow for easier access and multiple beds at various levels. Garden art peeks out at every turn.
Tickets are on sale from local Master Gardeners and at the WSU Extension office, Airport Garden Center, Green House Nursery and Port Book and News in Port Angeles; Over the Fence, Peninsula Nursery, Sunny Farms, Nash’s and Wild Birds Unlimited in Sequim; and www.gardentour.brownpapertickets.com.
The day of the tour, they also can be purchased at any of the gardens.
Proceeds from the tour help maintain demonstration gardens on Woodcock Road west of Sequim and on Fifth Street in Port Angeles, as well as gardening education programs throughout Clallam County.
For more information, contact 360-565-2679 or www.mgf-clallam.org.
