Birth of a Native Garden Plant Tour in Santa Cruz


Its time for tours! It's spring - a season-long fireworks display of blooms, with musical accompaniment by birds and frogs! Above is a view of our house from the road, showing local native ceanothus on the left, and a flannel bush I planted a while back, and that is really starting to have some presence.

And Ms Town is again showing her garden on the Going Native Garden tour, which is truly an inspiration to so many, it's just great. I can't hardly wait to see it myself on tour day, April 17th.

Now Santa Cruz has its own native garden tour! At the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show a very inspiring and energetic young woman dropped by the CNPS booth (where Ms Town and I were being booth bunnies - sorry - meeces).

Her name is Lindsay Goldberg, and she is working very hard to bring off a brand new tour. You can visit the site, California Native Garden Tour.

I can only guess at the effort it takes to get a whole new tour off the ground. There may be fewer gardens on the tour but I for sure would drive over the hill just to enjoy this garden which you can see previewed on the site. Here's one photo:


The Santa Cruz California Native Garden tour is on Sunday June 12th. We are so blessed in our region with springtime native plant tours -- so it's good to have one that's a bit later.

I hope one day my garden would be presentable enough to go on a tour. This is a wakeup call for me - and maybe other native plant gardeners in the Santa Cruz area. I do hope next year's tour will build on this year's momentum - I would love to see more coastal native plant gardens.

And let me give another shout out for ....


YES! There is still time to sign up. The tour is on April 17, 10-4

Just like last year, Ms Town Mouse's garden will be on tour and Ms. Country Mouse will be a docent for the afternoon. If you're local, don't miss this tour, there are some stunning gardens this time (and the tour is FREE).

Go to http://www.gngt.org, or just click on the banner on the left.

Maybe we'll see you there!

Comments

I was at Native Revival when I heard about the Santa Cruz garden tour. Like you, my thought was...'gee, I wonder if some day my garden...'. Then I looked out at the weeds and realized that might not be for some time! ;) It's a shame it's not until June though. Most of the spring natives will be done by then.
Terra said…
I wrote the June garden tour on my calendar, for inspiration it would be fun to attend.
Sue Langley said…
Mouse, I hope you post a 'photo tour' for those who can't go that far.
I love that the tours are featuring native plants. Some nurseries don't stock natives, but that's the section I head to first because most are relatively deer proof.
It's surprising up here how many people want to grow roses and annuals, then say the deer eat everything they plant.

Sue
Anonymous said…
What a wonderful idea! And supported by so many that it can be FREE! Very impressive Garden Tour!
Anonymous said…
Looks like one beautiful native plant garden! :)
ryan said…
That's great. I'm sure it's a lot of working putting together a tour, but the tours in our area are very popular and really do a lot to influence gardeners.The garden looks great. I hope the tour does well.