Tooele Garden Tour

Build it and the people will come. 

Several years ago Tyler and I toured yards at the annual Tooele Garden Tour and decided that one day we'd like to be a part of it. Tyler is on a first name basis with owner of the local nursery, and Wade recommended our yard to be in the tour this year.

The Friday before the tour, my Fitbit told me I had walked 36 miles in the last 5 days and that was just in my yard, trying to get it ready to host. I just really wanted the weeds to lie low and the grass to be somewhat green after a week of 90 degree temperatures.

Projects got put on the fast track but I also didn't let it stress me out. Our yard is what it is . . . a work in progress. I was looking at photos from just a year ago and am stunned at the growth and change that can happen in such a short amount of time.

Tyler talks about "all the people" when he's creating walkways and paths in our yard. "The people are going to want to walk over here . . . " We like to jest him about all the people who are going to come to our house.

Well, he wasn't kidding. Last week, in the rain, we had 230 people visit our yard. I ended up changing into pants and shoes and turning on the outdoor fire pit. It was such a drastic change from the week prior. "The people" appreciated a little warmth and some fun conversations were held around that fire.

Erik was our sidekick for the day. I mean he seriously hung out with us all day long. He claims he wanted to see how many people were just as crazy as his parents. I secretly thinks he likes us :)

After a long week of weeding and mulching and projects and then a long day of nonstop people, we treated our kids to Golden Corral. That place brings back memories of my papa bear and his silly antics which of course I had to show my kids.

He loved to take the sugar packets and and pretend to snort them. Don't even ask. For his birthday this year we all pitched in for a shotgun and of course, in true dad fashion, he had to redneck it for pictures. That would be a birthday candle in his mouth. No one who really knows him would believe he was a seminary teacher by profession. He certainly doesn't fit the mold.

Well coming back from my little digression there about my dad (it is father's day today), this week's local newspaper had a write up about the garden tour and even though yards weren't mentioned by name, you kind of knew if Jay was describing your yard.

Good things
rain
Aggie ice cream
my van

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June 16, 2016
Things I learned from some great gardeners
By Jay Cooper

The 2016 Garden Tour is now in the history books, and what a great event it was! Tooele Valley residents (and quite a few visitors from the Wasatch Front) showed up mightily to support this great community event.

It was the first time the Tour was expanded to include the “Summer Blast” at the historic Benson Gristmill, and the community gave a resounding “YES!” to this happening. The venue was packed with approximately 800-1,000 people. The sights and sounds were fantastic, as were the aromas from the food trucks! We look forward to doing this all again next year. 

My wife Maggie and I always look forward to the Tour because it’s exciting to see how hosts step up each year to put their yardscape on display for all to enjoy. As past Garden Tour hosts ourselves, we understand it’s a bit nerve-racking to work so hard and then open your yard to guests, hoping they will like what they see! Each time we visit the tour locations, it’s a marvel of creativity and ingenuity as these homeowners find new and innovative ways to design, arrange, surprise and delight the viewer with hardscapes as well as varieties that have been around for centuries and newer cultivars.

So, we’d like to feature interesting, unique and amazing things we learned from this year’s Tour.

One of my new favorite terms is “whimsy,” as it perfectly describes the use of “found” materials in the garden to create an emotional or “wow” reaction. We saw this technique at many of our 2016 locations. One tour host put hinges on a wrought-iron headboard to create a gate in their garden. We also saw an old wooden chair that had a hole cut in the seat big enough to house a
potted plant.

We’ve seen old boots, small wheelbarrows, ornate screen doors or even metal wash tubs placed randomly in garden beds with flowers or ground cover flowing out of them. They look as if they were tossed aside in an unplanned way and just happened to sprout life from within! Other gardeners went searching in unlikely places, like junkyards or metal recyclers, to find items that would lend themselves aesthetically to a particular garden design. We saw three-foot-tall metal springs from machinery standing proudly in flower beds, large gears painted and displayed on posts and even fin assemblies from aerial fuel tanks or bombs that were used as planters!

Hardscapes were another popular mainstay on the tour this year. These are elements of a yardscape that will tend to last a long time and be essentially the same from year to year. You might say they are foundational to the overall garden space. There were a variety of surfaced paths that were delightful to stroll on. Water features are always intriguing and ranged from a simple fountain to a complete waterfall with a flowing creek bed.

We saw several homes with a fire pit area, created from various materials. Some included informal seating while others had padded porch swings or large benches around the pit. Sitting outside on a cool night, in the dark, around a crackling fire is almost irresistible! One homeowner even installed gas logs in their outdoor fire pit for ease of use (not to mention not getting smoke in the eyes!). Other hardscape elements incorporated at sites were large boulders, arbors, retaining walls, pergolas, and benches.

Varying elevations was a common theme in many of this year’s locations. Some owners had naturally sloping lots that easily lent themselves to elevation changes while others created elevations by mounding up large amounts of soil to create giant islands in their landscape. Many of these mounds not only had trees and plantings but pathways, as well, that meandered around or over them and often included a bench or other seating to allow visitors to stop and enjoy the beauty for a while. Still others achieved the look and feel of elevation by their planting arrangement — contrasting very tall plants and shrubs in the back of a bed with smaller ones in the front. 

Another design element common to some of the homes was placing ornamental and edible plants in the same garden bed. Some of the edibles we saw included strawberries, rhubarb, dill, basil, lemongrass and other good-looking veggie plants that were enjoying life along side a wide variety of perennials.

It’s a great way to add “practical” plants to your garden that not only look beautiful but taste good as well. Cabbage, turnips, and kale are also great candidates for placement in ornamental areas.

A cool idea for landscape design is a tool area where gardeners can keep their commonly used garden tools readily accessible. Gardeners spend a lot of time weeding, watering, pruning, planting and fertilizing their landscape. Having tools and gloves close at hand, while not exposing them to the elements, is essential.
Several homes incorporated that need into their yardscape in clever ways. We saw a mailbox on a post in one garden with the word “Tools” painted on the outside. Others had small sheds or neatly kept buildings that housed shovels, rakes, fertilizer and the like in an attractive way that became part of the outdoor decor. Being practical doesn’t mean it needs to be ugly!

Another great idea is instead of potting annual flowers to decorate your porches and other garden spaces, use perennials that you want to add to your garden beds and enjoy them as potted plants. Then plant them, towards the end of the season, as a permanent part of your landscape. Get them in the ground early enough that they can get established before their winter’s sleep. Step and
repeat this process the next year and so on. We are currently adopting this practice with lavender and blue flax that are potted on our porch right now.

We also saw quite a few outdoor rooms on the tour this year. These rooms ranged from uncovered seating with minimal support structures to permanent outdoor covered spaces with roofs and floors and lots of places to sit and relax. Depending on your budget and what you are trying to accomplish, there are unlimited ways to create an outdoor room space in your yard that will not only meet your family’s needs but also fit nicely in your yard’s design.

And speaking of family, kids were king on this year’s tour! Many homes had large, dedicated spaces in the yard for their kids and other playmates. One home actually built a meandering lowspeed ATV track complete with hills at the bottom of their sloping property. Another home not only incorporated beautiful landscape for the adults including an outdoor room, vegetable gardens and a backyard deck with fire pit, then made it fun for the kids to live there as well! They are kept engaged with a sports court, enclosed trampoline, tetherball area, club house and — get this — a fountain set up just like the dancing waters at the Gateway Mall in Salt Lake City. When turned on, small holes in the concrete floor squirt water into the air at random intervals and heights. The neighborhood kids love it so much that the owner has installed a flagpole in the front of the house and, only when the yellow flag is flying, the neighborhood kids are welcome to come and play in the water as well. Wow! You know that will be a great childhood memory for all the kids in the neighborhood when they grow up! 

Congratulations to all of the tour hosts for making the 2016 tour remarkable and memorable! We broke attendance records again this year and work has already begun for next year’s event. Our thanks as well to our title sponsor — the Tooele Transcript Bulletin. They really helped us get the word out and were great to work with!

The 2017 Garden Tour will be June 10 with the Friday night Summer Blast being held on June 9. Mark your calendars and, if you were inspired by this year’s homes and take some of these ideas to heart, maybe YOUR home will be on the Tour in the not-so-distant future!