Open Days Garden Tours

[Nyboy]

I just placed my order for 2016 open days garden tour list book. It is offered from the Garden Conservancy. Most weekends gardeners across the country open their private gardens for tours. Tickets are $7 each all money raised goes to maintaining public gardens. When I travel somewhere I would looked up local gardens open for tour that weekend. Gardens can be anything from tiny city backyards to vast estates. My famous people are on tour. Every year there are different gardens open.

 

[Nyboy]

https://www.gardenconservancy.org/

 

[digitS']

How does this work?

https://www.gardenconservancy.org/open-days/2016_od_schedule

Do you just expect that people will show up in your yard on the dates set for your county? What happens if there are no cities listed near your home? Bainbridge Island and southwest Washington State are hundreds of miles away. Oddly, there are no dates for Oregon. Does that just mean a Portland invasion across the Columbia and into southwest Washington State is to be expected?

Steve

 

[Nyboy]

I guess it depends where you live. I have gone on some tours where we where only ones and some where we couldn't find a parking space. You can email the conservancy any questions.

 

[ninnymary]

I just registered for the free Native Gardens Tour. These gardens are amazing. Native plants do not require much water and many have beautiful blooms. There are 30 gardens all over the east bay and last year I only had time to see 12. That was pushing it.

Last weekend we went to see the Botanical gardens at UC Berkeley. We weren't sure what to expect since it's winter but they were still beautiful and so worth it. We found out you can eat on the grounds so we will return in the summer with our cheese, crackers, pate, and fruit.

Mary

 

[Nyboy]

Mary can never go wrong with a picnic !!! Steve I should be getting my directory mid March will let you know what gardens are listed in your area

 

[thistlebloom]

$7 is so inexpensive! Is that per garden NYboy?

We have a few garden tours in the county I live in, organized by one of the garden clubs. There are usually 5 or 6 gardens and they can include small hobby farms, and tiny town gardens. One year there was a cattle ranch on the tour. My favorite was one of the really small town gardens that was so creative and fun, they grew a lot of their own produce and mingled the vegetables in and amongst the flower beds. They also had a lot of funky art objects in the garden which gave it a cheery humorous feel.

There are tours in other counties and some well advertised ones in Washington, over the border, but I have only attended the local one.
It's a hard time of year for me to find the extra time.

There is also an arboretum that I would love to make time for.

 

[Nyboy]

Yes $7 a ticket each person needs 1 ticket for each garden. When I first joined years ago it was $3 a ticket. The money goes for a good cause, many public gardens are funded with this money.

 

[aftermidnight]

I love garden tours, locally some of our horticultural, society's (garden club) members open their gardens when they are at there best. The Conservatory of Music hosts a garden tour around the Victoria area most years, I've seen some magnificent gardens, tiny pocket gardens, cottage gardens my fav.... and in 2012 I went on a pond tour down island. I didn't take many pictures but this little pond really caught my eye.

It was tucked away in a corner, so you can see you don't need a lot of space to pop one in.
Also on this same tour these really caught my eye, someone was very handy with what nature provides.




Of course anything rustic grabs my attention, I'd love to have any of these in my garden.
Annette

 

[Nyboy]

In the bench photo do you remember what is planted between pathway stones?