Garden Tour

A couple of friends and I recently spent part of a Saturday touring gardens as part of The Garden Conservancy’s Open Days.

We decided to start the day by fortifying ourselves with some breakfast at Arthur’s Market. I hadn’t visited Arthur’s Market in quite a while, and I was left wondering why the heck I hadn’t been to Arthur’s Market in quite a while. It is so freaking cute. If I were visiting another city and ended up here, I’d be taking pictures and recommending a visit. So I took a picture, and I recommend a visit.

I had an iced chai and a Quiche Lorraine, and while it was not thrifty, it was entirely delicious.

I have decided that Cute W and I should play tourist in our hometown and bike down to Arthur’s to have an indulgent breakfast on the weekends. Then, it was on to the garden. We had an address to look for, plus there was a helpful sign posted.

First up was the 50 Shades of Green garden.

This was a lovely little space in the Stockade just jam-packed with tons of lovely plants. Our guide there tends the garden about four hours a day, and he was happy to show us around and answer questions. Here’s a horse statue at the entrance, butterfly bush, and blazing star along with a tub with some water plants on the left and a close-up on some milkweed on the right. I was glad to hear him tell me that the blazing star has spread rapidly, because I have about three of them in my yard now, and I’m hoping for more in the coming seasons.

This garden was behind the building on North Church Street that houses Sweet Sprig. I have mentioned before that I love their honeysuckle lotion, but gosh, I can’t believe I never shared that the shop itself is super-cute.

I mean, look how cute!

You might also encounter Sweet Sprig at farmers’ markets and other places, and if you do, I just want to let you know that the tester containers do not do the lotion justice. If you buy yourself something, it will smell extremely fresh and lovely, but since it is not awash in preservative chemicals, if you sniff a tub of something that’s been opened a bunch of times, it’s much less potent. Just get yourself some. Or get some for a friend and sniff it before you give it away.

While in Sweet Spring we also found this Entangled Threads Foraging Card. That’s right: you can basically go for a treasure hunt in search of fiber craft mushrooms, and when you’ve located the “fiber fungi,” the host business will stamp your passport. Even the stamp is cute!

This only continues for a couple of more weeks, which is what finally prompted me to stop procrastinating and write this post.

During our visit to the first garden our guide raved about another garden we had to see, which ended up being just around the corner from my friend’s house. We decided to visit this one as well.

This garden had tons of different little “rooms,” and it was gorgeous, plus the hosts were lovely.

There was tons to see, but it was also extremely hot and sunny, so I was running out of steam.

One thing that I really loved about this garden was how the homeowner used all sorts of rustic wooden structures to display, support, and separate different plants in the garden.

It made me want to go out and find some twigs to weave! These little fences are so cool!

It was a nice change of pace to visit the gardens, but it made me realize how extremely focused I’ve become on native plants. Like, butterfly bush is beautiful and fragrant, but since it’s not native to the area, I just don’t want it. It’s made me think that I should really try harder to show up to some Wild Ones events instead. We’ll see if I actually get that done.