Saturday's activities....

I knew it would be 'a day filled with opportunities', as I was the one who Over-Committed myself.

Over recent years, I have been a volunteer 'hostess' at various residences in the city, when the Keep Columbus Beautiful organization would sponsor the annual Tour of Gardens. It gives the citizens who are willing to purchase a ticket a peek into spaces that are normally considered private property and not generally viewed by the general public. Even though the average passers-by might drive down a side street and get a peek into some tidy, well groomed outdoor living space, we don't usually invade to the point of strolling through most back yards to inspect the flora.

I've seen some beauty-filled gardens, even though I have never actually done the 'tour'. There are usually ten or  more different private spaces open to the public each year, in the spring, when things are gloriously blooming. As the 'hostess' working an assigned shift, out in the sauna-like heat of middle Georgia, when my assignment is done, and the next 'hostess/sitter' comes to relieve me, I'm generally ready to go home to my own little peaceful space. So I have yet to take advantage of the opportunity to stroll through the other delights that are part of the seasonal tour.

Yesterday, I was at a home in a neighborhood with some houses well over one hundred years old. I think the house I spent 5 1/2 hours walking around was right at 100, with many old growth trees that were obviously there when the land was cleared. Some beautiful old long-leaf pines, and a huge, wonderfully aromatic old magnolia tree. The delightful sweetly scented, lemon-y odor of magnolia blooms filled the air, and traveled across the neighborhood on a pleasantly wafting breeze. The home owners had planted dozens and dozens of specimen daylilies in a wide arc across the sunlight backyard, that will continue to provide bright color all summer long. They have an amazing assortment of camellia bushes that must be gorgeous in the early part of the year, when they are gloriously blooming in January and February. The other plantings that were most eye-catching in early June were hydrangeas: some native oak-leaf in full glory, with some of the cone shaped blooms beginning to turn that dark magenta red they show as they mature. A huge bed of the old fashioned blue 'mop-head' hydrangeas that require so much water, they were beginning to droop by mid-day, but still a bright. colorful addition to the landscape. Another large clump of the newer 'lace cap' hydrangeas out by the street, that would be a delightful glimpse of summer to anyone driving by or walking the neighborhood.

They also had lots of lush ferns, some planted in the landscaping, and some in pots. (I am a fool for ferns, and admittedly had a terrible case of 'hydrangea lust' by the time I left at the end of the tour hours on Saturday.) Brightly colored eye-catching annuals planted in containers all around, stratgecially placed around the property, and in window boxes, adding bright touches of white, purple, pink. Expansive Confederate jasmine vine growing on supports in an almost arbor like fashion, twining all across the back of the house, providing more wonderful southern smells as you walk around the corner, following your nose, searching for the source.

The gardening 'secret' I discovered, while walking around in the charming environment, enjoying the benefits of someone else's labor: don't work yourself to death planting season stuff. Put in lots of long blooming perennials, shrubs like the hydrangeas that hold blooms, even though they have faded, for months, or the dwarf gardenias that seem like they bloom all summer. Then put some brightly blooming annuals in containers, that you strategically place around as eye-candy. The brilliant colors of the annuals, when they are well fed and watered will draw your eye to reds, yellows, purples when you spot them in window boxes or pots of cascading blooms and filler on terraces, patios, decks, steps leading into other areas. You don't invest so much money in the seasonal things that peter out in massed plantings over the months, plus you don't invest your poor aching back in getting them in the ground - most window boxes are at a manageable height, and containers can be raised for ease of planting.


It was a delight. I wish I'd had the time to see some of the other gardens, but knew I had other plans for the rest of my day. The Tour continues today, but I have to be at work at 10:00.