Bloomin' Backyards

2012 Bloomin' Backyards Educational Garden tour
Vegetable Gardening Handout                    

 
Blooming' Backyards 2012
Garden Tour & Market

Thank You to All Who Attended!!

The Gardens

ALISON’S GARDEN

“Detach yourself from circumstances that no longer sustain you. Surround yourself with fresh thoughts, new challenges, nourishing relationships and fresh knowledge. Otherwise, your growth will stagnate and eventually draw to a halt.” -Vivian Elizabeth Glyck


When you meet Alison you are instantly aware of an intimate and personal gardener with respect and awe for nature. With a gentle modest manner, Alison does not hesitate to describe her garden as a “learning garden.”  A small, cold and shady environment seemed to challenge every thing she planted on the steep, windy hill behind her house. After failing to grow thriving grapevines and losing a battle to produce a yard of native grasses, the landscape has at last become her “hill to look at.” Asked where Alison seeks peace, refuge and solace within her garden, she quickly replies, “I’ll be up on the hill, under the Aptos blue redwood tree with my book.” The unique Nancy Norris-designed miniature railroad system in the garden is in perfect harmony with the surrounding environs.

• A Salad Garden
• Mason Bees and other beneficial insects
• Insects—good and bad

 

Lida’s Garden

“So when I grew up and finally bought my own little acre, I was faced with quite a predicament. I knew when I was house hunting that a garden was going to be one of my efforts in fashioning a bond with the cosmos. It was a priority that I had space and sun.” – Vivian Elizabeth Glyck


Lida’s garden became a “Place to Grow” at the top of the world when a dear friend gave her a “Lyda Rose” to plant on a mound formed near the front door. When the Simmons’ house was built twenty years ago, landscaping, healthy soils, plant materials and drainage were non-existent. Invasive Scotch broom and pampas grass choked out all available open space. Today, Lida’s vision of being perched on the top of the world looking out has been realized. With drainage systems, graceful terraced gardens of flowers, vines, trees and vegetables all in place, Lida now follows a new pursuit of planting succulents and perennials together in order to watch form and content reveal themselves as they push and pull each other into new sculptural forms.

•  Lawn Alternatives
• Sonoma County Beekeepers Association
• Heirloom Vegetables
• Thornless blackberry care

Margaret ‘s Garden

“Plants, just like people, have their own individual needs. If you impose your own desires on them, it will violate their true natures and they will suffer and die. Accept and nourish their individuality and your support will nurture them.”- Vivian Elizabeth Glyck


Margaret developed her two-year old garden in a barren environment on the banks of the river behind the Truett Hurst Winery. A talented landscape designer, she did all the work, including gardening and labor. Her decision to hold hands and firmly embrace nature took a great deal of Margaret’s energy, education and commitment as she brought the garden to fruition. She planted a garden that blooms continuously throughout the season mixing shapes and colors to create an artist’s palette. Today, she partners her nutritional soils, irrigation system and unique plants with the site’s wind, native soils and heat to produce a garden where nature and human ingenuity exist side by side.

• Healthy Soils
• Composting & Soil Sustainability
• West County Community Seed Exchange
• Partners for Sustainable Pollination

 

Sandy’s Garden

“You can’t harvest what you don’t sow. So plant your desires, gently nurture them, and they will be awarded with abundance.” – Vivian Elizabeth Glyck

Sandy’s garden is a vision of “spirited generosity,” imbued with the feeling of walking backwards in time. The home and garden, built on 1.3 acres is 1982, has recently undergone refurbishment from rental property back to owner’s domicile. Like all great properties, however, the bones of the structures remain strong and viable for visitors to enjoy today. Bask in the exuberance of the front wall of Sally Holmes roses, the olive orchard, the cattle trough edible garden, and the glass greenhouse with a Monte Rio 1927 skylight, a stone wall of succulents and many more visual delights. Asked what, if any, favorite magnets pull her out to her garden, Sandy laughingly listed her outdoor kitchen, the olive orchard and the veggie garden as big draws. “But, I never can really choose” she said. “I guess it is whatever new project I’ve started.”

• Craft Sale
• A Potager in Healdsburg: food & flowers
• An Olive Orchard
• Succulent Art

Susie’s Garden

“When there is no distraction in the garden, peace abounds. You can hear the gentle buzz of nature and be completely mindful of what is in front of you. A garden flourishes in silence and shrinks amidst distraction.” – Vivian Elizabeth Glyck

Surrounded on three sides with vineyards, Susie’s garden is a series of ‘rooms’ amidst a “green village” where four buildings co-exist with a myriad of plants, vegetables, trees and surfaces; where hardscapes and softscapes interweave themselves to give comfort to visitors; where “green” has been employed in the truest sense to leave all natural resources in perfect balance. Although very open, the garden is designed to create a sense of privacy. Vegetables and flowers grow in raised beds. Arbored patios for entertaining and dining surround the lap pool. Asked what is she most proud of Susie’s response was “Why, the espaliered crabapples that flank the barn door with the star above.”

• Plant Sale
• Propagation and Garden Design
• Sudden Oak Death (SOD) advice
• Sonoma County Water Resources Agency