The Anchorage Garden Club Tour was yesterday, and three of the gardens were just a short walk from my parent’s house. My mom and I decided to check them out.
Here’s a great write-up by Mike Dunham in the Anchorage Daily News about the tour: Warm, sunny summer sets the table for Anchorage garden tour (map of gardens at the bottom of the article; we stopped by gardens on St. Elias, Illiamna, and Brooke).
I’m not much of a gardener (good thing I live in a condo!), but I have a deep appreciation for people who are. Although I love all kinds of outdoor spaces, I think my favorite kind of garden is thoughtfully planned, and then let run a bit wild. I don’t really care for grass, and I’m intrigued by gardens that include lots of Alaskan plants and flowers.
The gardens we visited today were all gorgeous, and the love (and labor!) that went into them was apparent as we wandered through all the flourishing plants.
I took A LOT of photos, but somehow, photos of flowers never do them justice. The picture I picked for this post is of a tomato shed (technical term unknown) – it was my favorite spot on the tour because of the cheerful red door, translucent ceiling panels, and amazing smell of fresh green living things when I stepped through the door.
There was another impressive tomato shed (photo below) in a different garden, with the tomato plants growing down from the ceiling, heavy with fruit. I’ve never seen anything like it before, and if it were mine, would probably lie on the floor to gaze at all that beauty. Or even better, set up a cot and sleep in there – can you image falling asleep to that scent, and waking up to greenery and tomatoes? On the flip side, you might wake up to a tomato in the face…
These are some of the other highlights from the garden tour:
- Dahlias and peonies as big as my head (and I have a huge head)
- Wandering paths leading to increasingly gorgeous flower beds
- Goldfish in a jar
- More kinds of flowers than I’ve ever seen in one place – a riot of color and shapes
- Pigeons
- Chickens
- A laughing baby learning how to walk
- Stopping to smell a mock orange tree (such a lovely fragrance)
- An all white garden against the backdrop of a grey and white house (very classic and clean looking)
- An all pink and purple garden
- All the little entrepreneurs who set up lemonade stands at neighboring driveways
- Lots of terracotta (love love love terracotta)
- Something that looked like it might be an outdoor wood-fired pizza oven?!
- Appreciating the creativity the gardeners poured into their creations; I loved how each one was so different from the others
- And of course, literally stopping to smell the roses
Mom, did I forget anything fabulous?
Did anyone else check out the Garden Club tour? What was your favorite part?
I too would like to try sleeping with the tomatoes. Fresh tomatoes and their vines are one of my all time favorite smells.
Bruce
Absolutely one of the best smells!