After a one-year hiatus, the annual South Haven Garden Walk returns this month.
This month’s walk, hosted by the South Haven Garden Club, will take place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., July 10. Participants will have the opportunity to visit four private gardens in the Village of Glenn and two more near South Haven. The tour begins at the Liberty Hyde Bailey Museum and Gardens, 903 S. Bailey St., where participants will receive a map for the tour.
Complementary refreshments will also be available. Advance tickets are $15 each, plus a $2 surcharge, or $18 on the day of the event. Tickets can be bought in advance at Wolverine Ace Hardware, 530 Huron St.; South Haven Visitors Bureau, 546 Phoenix St.; Murphy’s Mall, 321 Center St.; the Bailey Museum, 903 S. Bailey Ave.; or online at southhavengardenclub.org.
Proceeds from the Garden Walk are an important source of revenue for the nonprofit organization, Garden Club publicity co-chair Diane Cabinees said.
“One-hundred percent of our profit goes toward local education, college scholarships and our Hospice flower programs,” she said.
The Garden Club may be best known for its annual Garden Walk, but it also hosts plant and floral-related educational programs throughout the year, hands out scholarships to high school and college students pursuing agricultural-related degrees and arranges and donates floral bouquets to Hospice patients in the South Haven area.
A description of the gardens on display in this year’s Garden Walk includes:
Garden one – Wind and the Woolie: This garden was created at a lakeside setting by a retired orthodontist and interior designer. The driveway to the home encircles a central bed of landscape roses, hostas, dwarf-crested iris and black-eyed Susans. The backyard, which overlooks Lake Michigan, is home to a variety of container gardens.
Garden two – Mother Nature Rules: At home in the woods, the owners of these gardens have learned to embrace nature’s role in their garden play. Pachysandra and other ground covers can be found throughout. Even nature’s bloopers, such as a fallen tree, are made use of. The gardens are also home to a koi pond, moss path and a very large Japanese lilac tree.
Garden three – Tres Francais: Based on a raised plinth within wetlands, this residence, featured in Midwest Living and Chicago Home & Garden, is bordered by stacked stones and formal shrubbery. The landscape design is French-inspired with symmetry and order prevailing. Lavender encloses the rear of the property. A large iron urn contains many colorful flowering plants. Other over-scaled ceramic planters accentuate the pool and patio lounge areas, along with arbors and pergolas, with climbing vines. In front, a pear tree espalier stands with its back against the home.
Garden four – Seurat’s Folly: These gardens are accented by a variety of artist ceramic figurines. The artist and her husband, an architect, have built a central enclosed courtyard against the back drop of their colorful contemporary home. Blue stone pavers are interlaced with yellow succulents among a patchwork quilt of small gardens. The owner has created a garden consisting of black mondo grass and thalictrum, and dotted with rose campion, spigelia, lungwort, heuchera and oriental lilies.
Garden five – Remains of the Estate: While the main house of this compound was destroyed in a fire many years ago, the carriage house was among several outbuildings that survived. It was later remodeled and expanded by the current owners. Out front, a stand of trees salutes visitors. Side paths lead to a series of exterior rooms of special interest is the more than 50-year-old grape and trumpet vine hideaway, the kousa dogwoods, tricolor beech tree and European larch. Just north of the property are four acres of dense Norwegian pines and an old Christmas tree farm, now referred to as “Hansel and Gretel Forest.”
Garden six – Treehuggers: In a forested area, an artist and her husband have carved out a harmonious, unified landscape around their home and quaint outbuildings. Rustic pathways carry visitors through the shady gardens that contain ornamental and native perennial plants. An existing natural pond was improved with rock edging, waterfalls, koi and other plantings. The recent loss of a large tree near a white barn opened an area of full sun allowing for new garden endeavors including a pollinator garden and a deer-proof vegetable garden structure. Guests can also visit the ceramic studio building to see the artist at work and into the barn that includes artifacts from the owner’s great-grandfather’s Michigan farm.
