Franklin County (PA) Gardeners: 2010 Garden Tour Coverage and Pictures

Lucas Garden
Photo - L. Miller

Nice write up in the Chambersburg Public Opinion on yesterday's 2010 Garden Tour. From the article:

"I like how they've blended everything. They have the roses blended with the perennials. It's just pretty how they put it all together and they have bloom year round that's what amazes me,"

"A lot of this should be inspirational. We have gardens that are very simple in structure so that they should not be intimidated if they are not an experienced gardener," said Georgena Ruth, chair of the garden tour and master gardener. "We want to encourage those who are inexperienced and for those who are experienced we want to allow them room to grow to the next level."

Master Gardeners Karen Latsbaugh and Nancy Jones were in charge of the refreshments.

Instead of the traditional cookies, they chose vegetables from the garden to make salsa, cucumber sandwiches and lavender mint tea to satisfy the appetite of tour participants.

"People like gardens, and it's a great opportunity for us to give a little bit of educational information about gardening," Jones said. "At most of the sites there are handouts or people to answer questions that give information about various aspects about gardening and agriculture."

More at the link, including quotes and descriptions of the Redington and Gray gardens. And apparently, MG's can play a small part in keeping the marital relationship on an even keel:

"I'm stealing all these ideas. In order not to have a divorce with my husband -- he likes evergreens, so I'm trying to take pictures of the beautiful evergreen gardens and the more conservative gardens," said Barkdoll jokingly. "So it's a compromise between me spending $200 on flowering perennial plants which he's not crazy about because of the way they die off and leave not so pretty foliage. I'll hide them with the evergreens and it's good marriage therapy."

The 2010 Autumn Stroll went very well, and much thanks go to the chair of the event, Georgena Ruth, whose year-long efforts and organizing were on display all day. Particularly impressive, to me, was the unobtrusive, but clear emphasis on the educational aspects of various disciplines within home horticulture and the Master Gardeners support of Penn State Cooperative Extension's Land Grant mission.

Well done!

And of course the event couldn't happen without the generous public spiritedness of our garden hosts:

The Redington Garden - Joe, Nancy, Mike and Jim
The Gindlesperger Garden - Maxine and William
The Stenger Garden - Fred
The Gray Garden - Steve and Evie
The Stout Garden - Greg and Joseph
The Berger Garden - Nancy and Wayne
The Forsythe Garden - Richard
The Asbury Garden - Susan
The Miller Garden - Nancy and Larry
The Lucas Garden - Denise and Ted

Thanks for the support, folks!

Here are some pictures taken by Nancy Miller's husband, Larry, of the Lucas and Miller gardens including the "down time" afterwards.

Lucas Garden
Photo - L. Miller

Lucas Garden
Photo- L. Miller

Lucas Mailbox
Photo - L. Miller

I did some research. This vine that everyone admired is Hedera colchica 'sulphur heart' known variously as "Sulphur ivy", "Colchis ivy" or "Persian ivy". Here's a Google Image Search.