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1. Oakhurst Community Garden
435 Oakview Rd. (MAP)
Started by Sally Wylde in 1996 to teach children about where their food comes from, Oakhurst Community Garden is also a nature center, meeting space and wildlife habitat. It has 34 community plots, beehives, a chicken coop, stream, plant habitat, greenhouse and demonstration vegetable garden. The annual spring plant sale, offering vegetables, fruit trees and herbs, will be open during the tour. The garden is one of the green spaces managed by the Wylde Center, formerly the Oakhurst Community Garden Project. For more information visit www.oakhurstgarden.org.
From Oakview Road turn right on Adams Street.
2. Daiga Dunis and Kim Wallen
356 Adams St. (MAP)
Sponsor: Oakhurst Neighborhood Association
The gardens surrounding this 1918 Dutch Colonial home showcase an extensive collection of native and cultivated perennials. Garden features include a pond and a garage converted into an artists’ studio. Hydrangeas are prominent and favorites include “Fuji Waterfall,” “Preziosa” and Japanese climbing hydrangea “Moonlight.” The back of the property was recently transformed into a woodland garden. The sunny side along the driveway is called “the barbecue bed” because the concentrated summer heat allows only the most sun-loving plants, herbs and vegetables to thrive. The walled garden on the opposite side of the house is in cool shade.
Continue North on Adams Street.
3. Patty and Ed Buckley
327 Adams St. (MAP)
Sponsor: Russell and Herrerra, LLC
This garden contains formal elements that recall the gardens of a childhood home in Charleston, as well as a casual, family-centered style that suits the present needs of the Buckleys’ extended family. The 1910-era foursquare home’s exterior has been used in a number of movies and television shows. A perennial border sweeps across the front and features a wonderful assortment of sun-loving flowers: candytuft, dianthus, verbena, pincushion flower, sedum, phlox and coreopsis. A well-placed herb garden near the back entrance contains rosemary and lavender. Note the mature gingko tree in the southwest corner and a terrace constructed with concrete tiles that once paved the sidewalks of Adams Street.
Continue on Adams Street and turn right on College Avenue. Turn left at the light on McDonough Street, then make an immediate left after crossing the railroad tracks onto W. Howard Avenue. Turn right on Adair Street, and left on Emerson Avenue.
4. Ryan Gainey
129 Emerson Ave. (MAP)
Sponsor: Leslie Erickson, Prudential Georgia Realty
In early May, the extensive collection of heirloom roses takes center stage in this garden, scenting the air and dropping petals from overhead trees and arbors. Climbing “Cecile Brunner” cascades over the picket fence. Through the gate antique roses “Fantin- Latour” and “Marie Pavie” combine their fragrance and beauty with mock orange shrubs. Flowering shrubs proliferate in Ryan’s garden to highlight the roses. Examples are beauty bush, unusual varieties of deutzia, and weigela. Controlling the profusion is a clipped border of miniature boxwoods.
Please join Ryan in his garden on Sunday, May 6, 3 p.m., for a lesson on how to use antique roses to heighten fragrance, color, drama and overall romance in a private garden.
Continue on Emerson Avenue to Drexel Avenue and turn right. Turn right on W. Ponce de Leon Avenue and left on Pinetree Drive. The next two gardens are on the left.
Daytime and Evening Tour
5. Liam Simmons and Chris Fichtel (Rose Hill)
620 Pinetree Dr. (MAP)
Spring is coming up roses at Rose Hill! Chris and Liam purchased the newly constructed house in 2002 and began developing gardens on the half-acre lot. Their intent is to combine the naturalistic sensibilities of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead with a sense of lost formality appropriate to the antebellum-style home. Knock Out roses are terraced up the sloping hillside. Hybrid and heirloom rose bushes border walkways and porches. “Cabana” and “Mardi Gras” have large showy blooms. A profusion of white and yellow “Lady Banks” roses appears on walls near Ponce de Leon Avenue and around the pool. Tree form roses against a backdrop of arborvitae hedge complement a small water feature. Tall pines shelter a shady corner where raised planters surround a dramatic glass bottle fountain. A greenhouse of orchids is nearby.
Come Saturday evening between 7 and 9 p.m. and experience the magic of roses, water, moonlight and lanterns.
6. Pat Maddux
630 Pinetree Dr. (MAP)
Sponsor: Pam Hughes, Harry Norman Realtors
Roses and gardening have special significance for Pat. Her mother, Theresa Rosette, grew tea roses, but more carefree varieties of “David Austin” and “Cinco de Mayo” are present throughout this landscape. Foundation plantings line the driveway and include sky pencil holly, thread branch cypress, arborvitae, and ground cover roses. A hummingbird garden is situated near the back door. Water features dot the landscape and include a private blue-and-white garden with a fountain near a wall of climbing roses and a pool surrounded by a bright swath of Zeon zoysia grass. Cryptomeria, loropetalum and pittosporum provide contrast in color and texture. Shade plantings beneath the detached apartment porch include a variety of ferns, leopard plant, and orchid primrose. Pat has discovered the healing power of gardening while creating this stately home and garden from a barren lot.
Return to W. Ponce de Leon Avenue and proceed east toward downtown. There are many restaurants in this area for a lunch or dinner stop. Proceed to Glendale Avenue and turn left. The following gardens can be walked in a three-quarter-mile loop.
7. Carol and Vic Allums
121 Glendale Ave. (MAP)
Sponsor: Lampe-Farley Communications
The gardens of this former duplex include favorite plants and treasured hydrangeas, peonies, hellebores and azaleas from family members. Hardscaping was added to create an outdoor living space. The stone fireplace is flanked by camellias and weeping Japanese maples. Across the slate patio, a stone fountain is nestled in a half circle of Podocarpus. Little Gem magnolias peek from around the side of the house.
Gardenias are fragrant below the screened-in porch and along the old stone patio wall. The path to the rear of the garden is bordered by spiraea, native azaleas and grasses. “Soft Caress” mahonia appears throughout the garden. A corner of the mulched area is anchored by a small deodar cedar. A variety of trees and conifers provide privacy without shading the vegetable garden, which is bountiful in the summer.
Bear right on Glendale Avenue, which turns into Glenn Circle.
8. Bill and Sara Turnipseed
115 Glenn Circle (MAP)
Sponsor: In Bloom, Inc.
The modern facade of this home creates a backdrop for a wonderful collection of trees and shrubs. “Jelena” witch hazel and paper bush border the walkway. The curve of the lawn and a bench are surrounded by varieties of azalea, fatsia, holly and yew. A sunny drive leads to the pool, “lake house,” and patio with a pergola of climbing vines. A large wintergreen cotoneaster is established in the pool area. Dusty zenobia and crepe myrtles stretch across the back border. Along the side, a Charleston-style garden with dining area and fountain features cool shade for hosta, creeping fig, ferns, and stands of camellias.
Proceed up and around Glenn Circle and left on Pinecrest Avenue.
9. Damon Mauldin and Lisa Coronado
163 Pinecrest Ave. (MAP)
This garden is a treasure of surprises. Walk beneath the big magnolia past mature azaleas, gardenias and hollies to the ivy-covered gate. The gravel path continues past aucuba, a variety of yews, cast- iron plant, a Japanese snowbell tree and curly filbert. Stand between the “Thunderhead” pine and Japanese “coral bark” maple and listen to the water. This 2003 renovation developed streams from both sides of the grassy area under a shelter of pines. The water feature rambles beneath stone foot bridges and past a cedar pergola of “Lady Banks” roses, a gas fire pit, and a screened porch before falling into a koi pond near a sunken dining area. A quietly dripping retaining wall nurtures ferns, mosses, and bromeliads. This garden is truly an extension of the family’s living space and offers a year-round retreat.
Continue a short distance on Pinecrest Avenue, turn left on Glenn Circle and left on Glendale Avenue.
10. Ann and Buddy Smith
324 Glendale Ave. (MAP)
A pineapple finial is the centerpiece of the front courtyard. “G.G Gerbing” azaleas featured throughout this garden create a hedge around a red Japanese maple and antique fence. Burkwood viburnums flank the chimney. The driveway leads to deep, terraced gardens. One features a dwarf mondo grass lawn lined with beds of lilies, Solomon’s seal, bee balm, fatsia, and hydrangea. Pots of “Chanleri Elegans” variegated camellia standards frame the steps. In another, sculptured figures tower over a waterfall of antique syrup kettles. A bed-sized swing suspended from a high branch of a tulip poplar ends just inches from the ground. A rustic shed nestles among woodland plants rhododendron, leucothoe, and drifts of variegated “Carol Mackie” daphne.
Proceed on Glendale Avenue.
11. John and Sydney Parks
209 Glendale Ave. (MAP)
Sponsor: Renewal Design Build
In an established rock garden, every nook and cranny of the slope sports varieties of sedum, ice plant, lambs’ ear and creeping raspberry topped by Dutch Iris. Through the white picket fence, a path leads between vanilla-strawberry hydrangeas, encore azaleas, lavender and “Mister Bowling Ball” arborvitae. Birds are welcome in a scalloped bed of annuals. A thick border of oak leaf hydrangeas, aucuba, nandina, magnolias, camellias and neighboring oak trees provide privacy and protection for visiting grandchildren at play. A deep red hardy hibiscus blooms throughout the summer. Exit from the side of the house through a vine arbor, past Indian Hawthorn shrubs and perennials beneath a loblolly pine tree.
Return to W. Ponce de Leon and turn right. Turn right on Church Street and right on Bell Street.
12. Decatur Cemetery
229 Bell St. (MAP)
The largest green space in our city, the 58-acre Decatur Cemetery has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1997. A million-dollar renovation is nearing completion and includes flood control and streambed improvements, pond and dam renovation, pedestrian and bike walkways and restoration of 10 acres of forest with a stream. The new entrance is off Church Street.
A cemetery as green space and park isn’t a new idea. In this country, the tradition of citizens congregating and passing through such well-kept grounds began in the 1840s. The cemetery is a place where all may remember, reflect, reconnect, and recreate.
Please join the Friends of the Decatur Cemetery for a tour, Saturday, May 4, 11 a.m., or Sunday, May 5, 1:30 p.m., beginning at the pond. Self-guided tour brochures are available at the Gazebo and the cemetery office.
Return to Church Street and turn left. Turn right on Commerce Drive and right on Clairemont Avenue. Turn right on Scott Boulevard. The entrance to Woodlands Garden is a short distance on the left.
13. Woodlands Garden
932 Scott Blvd. (MAP)
Come for a quiet walk through a seven-acre wooded oasis, hidden away from a busy Decatur street. Historic gardens at the center of the property are filled with collections of hydrangeas, Japanese maples and camellias, while the extensive Piedmont areas showcase trees, shrubs and perennials native to this part of Georgia. Trails meander through towering poplar and oak trees, past a screened cedar pavilion and open amphitheater, and down to a stream. Hosts will be here to answer your questions. Parking is now available on site. For more information visit www.woodlandsgarden.org.
