prairie point

garden tourism

It was 95 degrees here this afternoon. Too hot to work but not too hot to tour gardens.

The Water Garden Society sponsored a tour this afternoon with dozens of gardens open. Too often this tour is a disapointment to plant people because the water gardens can turn out to be little more than big outdoor aquariums plopped in the middle of a suburban backyard lawn. We've done this tour before and been burned. This time we plotted a small group of five in a tight circle and set out.

One had landscaping by a friend of ours, Carol Feldman, so we definitely wanted to include it. A second happened to belong to the ex of one of Tricia's close friends, so if nothing else, that might provide a topic of conversation in the future.

We started out with the landscape designed by our friend and it was delightful, with lots of lantana in several colors, cigar plants, cotoneaster, a mexican plum tree and a tall hedge of martha gonzales roses. It was the front yard of one of those big new houses that are rapidly replacing the older ones in inner-city neighborhoods nowadays. The pond itself, which Carol did not design, is separate from the landscape and inside a small courtyard, so that you must walk over it on stepping stones to arrive at the front door.

Our second stop turned out to be the least interesting of the five. Described as a meditation center it was a 12-foot diameter pond in one corner of the backyard, with a high waterfall on one side. Not a lot for a plant person to see here, but at least it was constructed of real stones and not the fiberglass ones we had seen on our earlier tour. There were some great dragonflies though and I had fun trying (without success!) to get a good photo.

Next we came to a real garden which happened to have a stream and a pond in it. This is actually what comes to my mind with the phrase "water garden." This large garden had a sunny side and a shady side, separated by an archway covered with passionflower vine. The sunny side was a series of massive wood-sided raised beds about 2 feet tall, with grassy paths between them. The shady side was mostly ferns and hostas under an oak and a hackberry. There was a short stream flowing over a couple of short falls into a calm pool. The owner/builder said that she wanted the stream to seem natural and since the yard was flat she kept the maximum elevation to 18 inches.

Fourth was the house belonging to Nancy's ex. This busy backyard felt a little like a New Orleans courtyard on one end, with old brick paving and second-story balconies overlooking it. There was a large pond with many fish and a winding stream descending from a small earthen hill in the middle. A narrow path managed to cross the stream several times over footbridges. As the path descended the other side of the hill the yard transformed itself into a country garden with little rustic bowers set into two different corners.

Our final stop was a house we had passed many times and admired. It's an older home, possibly from the 40's or earlier but recently remodeled and in a beautiful setting on a hillside under huge trees. Here we saw two "water features". The first was large and splashy and helped to keep the adjacent patio and swimming pool isolated from the sounds of a street just a few feet away beyond the shrubbery. The other was a small fountain in an isolated side garden with a table and chair. What great writing I would surely do sitting at that table.

It turned out to be a enjoyable tour. We've talked about adding a pond to our garden, but so far we've not been willing to do the necessary work. Seeing the ponds this afternoon though made me wish I had one.

Posted by Bill Hopkins on June 22, 2003 03:53 PM