EVERETT — It’s a great month for gardeners and garden lovers. We still have time to plant and add fresh ideas to our own botanical retreats.
On the heels of the Sorticulture garden festival, the Evergreen Arboretum folks on Saturday are hosting their annual self-guided Gardens of Merit Tour of seven Everett gardens.
The event begins the morning of June 20 with the Evergreen Arboretum plant sale and raffle at Legion Memorial Park. You can buy your tour ticket there and look through the annuals, perennials, trees, shrubs, ground covers and roses. It’s a sale you won’t want to miss, organizers said, and you can come back after the tour.
Proceeds from the plant sale and tour benefit the volunteer-run Evergreen Arboretum, one of the city’s treasures, situated in a corner of Legion Memorial Park at the north tip of Everett.
While traveling through Everett on the tour, people also may want to stop at the Schack Art Center to see the exhibit “Art of the Garden,” which is displayed through Aug. 1 at 2921 Hoyt Ave. See garden art for outside as well as indoor art about gardens.
The garden tour guide comes complete with a map, a suggested route and a description of the gardens, which include small cottage gardens and larger, more formal landscapes.
The tour offers a chance to see how some people have dealt with steeply sloped properties and learn about creative ways to incorporate art, seating, arbors, planting sheds and greenhouses into a garden.
Take the tour at your own pace and be sure to stop and smell the roses. Really.
In addition, musicians are scheduled to perform at several of the gardens.
Tour organizers ask that participants don’t talk on cellphones, smoke, bring pets, use strollers or disturb the neighbors. Restrooms at the garden homes won’t be available for tour-goers, so plan ahead.
One of the gardens on the tour belongs to retirees Vicki and Wayne Witsoe, who live near Forest Park.
Their neighborhood includes many mature trees, which add to the beauty of the setting.
Vicki Witsoe has an artistic eye, clearly revealed in the way in which she mixes foliage colors and textures.
“I’m not an artist, but I am a visual person and throughout my life have been drawn to gardening,” she said.
Witsoe enjoys garden art and always makes at least one purchase at Sorticulture each year.
“I love nature and I love color,” she said. “I think of my garden as a constant work in progress.”
Witsoe has funky glass lilies and other sculpture in the ground, along with artwork on the fences and the exteriors of her house and garage. Her charming potting shed is used primarily to store her extra garden art.
The Witsoes bought their home about 12 years ago and immediately began making changes to the garden, though much of the current landscaping was done during the past five years.
The first project was a fountain and a dry creek bed in the back, and a garden area next to the street to keep people from driving over their lawn at the curve in the road. Their gardens feature rock and flagstone pathways around the house, nearly two dozen Japanese maples and seven outdoor seating areas — not including the shady back porch.
The couple’s hard work was recognized in 2005 when they won a Monte Cristo award, which honors people who help make Everett a nice place by taking pride in their properties.
During the spring, the front bed is filled with tulips. In the summer, day lilies add flowers of orange, a favorite color of Vicki’s.
Along with annuals, perennials, ferns, shrubs and trees in the curving garden beds in the back are beautiful flower pots, adding to the mix of color and texture.
Look for Witsoe’s katsura tree, among other special plants.
It’s all about form, fun and function, she said.
“It’s an honor to be chosen to be on the Gardens of Merit tour,” Witsoe said. “And I like it that it raises money for the Evergreen Arboretum, which is a special place.”
Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427; gfiege@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @galefiege.
If you go
Evergreen Arboretum &Gardens plant sale, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. June 20 at Legion Memorial Park, 145 Alverson Blvd., Everett; Gardens of Merit Tour, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. June 20 throughout Everett. The $12 ticket/guides are available at the plant sale the day of the tour. Advance ticket sales are available at Sunnyside Nursery, J. Matheson Gifts, Pacific Stone Company and Stadium Flowers. More information is at www.evergreenarboretum.com.
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