2016 Haywood County Garden Tour

Save the date – Saturday, June 18 - for the Haywood County Garden Tour presented by NC Cooperative Extension Foundation, Haywood County Extension Center and Haywood County Extension Master Gardener Volunteers.

The theme this year is “Pollinate, Propagate, Cultivate.

Tickets will first go on sale on Saturday, May 7, at the Whole Bloomin’ Thing in Frog Level. There will be a maximum of 500 tickets sold. Tickets are $15 in advance and $20 the day of the tour. More ticket locations will be announced this spring.

Tour an Official Monarch Waystation, an Orchard and Apiary, lush gardens with multiple beds of shade and sun plants and shrubs plus the Giving Garden at the Canton branch of the Haywood County Library.

For more information, call the Haywood County Cooperative Extension Service at 828-456-3575.

Sixteen local Plein Air artists, including students from Tuscola High School, will participate in the June 18 Haywood County Garden Tour by choosing a garden on the tour in which to capture the beauty they see there. Visitors will be able to meet the artists while they work and ask questions about this art form.

At the garden designated as an Official Monarch Waystation, one can learn to attract and then nourish WNC’s native species of butterfly. The goal here is to help each visitor realize that no matter the size of the yard, a gardener can help nature survive and thrive.

The garden tour will begin at the Mountain Research Station on Raccoon Road in Waynesville where ticket holders will pick up directions to the gardens. At 10:00am Kaleb Rathbone, Research Operations Manager, and his staff will give a wagon tour to see many of the studies currently pursued at the Research Station.

Tickets go on sale May 7 at the Whole Bloomin’ Thing festival in Frog Level in Waynesville. They can also be ordered by emailing "mgtour2016@charter.net" or by calling or visiting the Cooperative Extension Center located at 589 Raccoon Road, Suite 118 in Waynesville (828-456-3575).

One of the Gardens I tend will be on this year's tour. I will be there on tour day answering questions. I just hope no one expects me to follow Extension Service guidelines in my answers. I might have a different view of things.

Hope to see you there.

In the meantime I have other gardens to tend. I had to look at this today.

Then a big sack of Uvularia grandiflora fell out of the ground and followed me home. I planted them in three different places in case the varmints get to snacking on tasty roots and tubers over the winter again.