I posted this on another forum I participate in, so if you've seen it already, ignore this....

The garden on the tour today were pretty unexciting for the most part. We didn't even take pictures at two of them! It was a VERY hot day too so We ended up coming home for 2 hrs. in the middle - to cool off, have lunch, and take a nap!

Two of the smallest gardens on the tour were of the 'pack in too many trees' type that looked quite interesting at this stage but in 5 years would need to be severely cleaned out to start again. Which is fine is that's what people would actually do, but I suspect what is most likely to happen is the current owners sell and leave the problem for the next owners! Also, there seems to be a big trend to using rough fieldstone on paths. I HATE that stuff! Very dangerous for me to walk on. OK - I'm decrepit so that's probably not the usual reaction. But a young and otherwise healthy person who broke a leg or foot and was on crutches would also have trouble, as would a parent of a baby in a stroller. If you want a rustic path, make one from bark mulch so it's safely walkable! Nice, properly laid and level flagstone is great but that wasn't used an any of the gardens. Fortunately there weren't any peastone paths in the gardens this year - that is the other material that is virtually unwalkable for me.

Enough complaints... There were some nice things in the gardens. These glass flowers were very attractive:

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We got a chuckle out of this gargoyle that was carved by the ower of one garden:

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He had also made a rather unique water feature, piping water through a twisting copper pipes that flared out into two spouts slashing the water into a big bath-tub-shaped galvanized container. It rather looked like an outdoor shower at first glance, but I assume it was a tongue-in-cheek water feature :-)

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Just beside it was a VERY tall stand of bamboo that was 'caged' with a spiral of copper that ended as the lamp that you can see by the 'bathtub'. We asked if the bamboo was a clumper or a running type. The guy said it runs! I suspect the next owner of the house might need to hire a backhoe and excavate the whole property to a depth of several feet to get rid of the bamboo! But it was interesting at the moment... (There was also a New Dawn rose scaling the top of trees and shrubs nearby.) Interesting folk but I suspect the house will be hard to sell when they decide to move on :-)

Check out the height of the bamboo relative to my 5' (it's the stuff that is continuing out the top of the picture...):

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This was a clematis arch. I really liked it. It was not in flower although there were both buds and seed heads. The lady did not know the name of the clematis. She said it was blue and white, with large, open flowers (not a dangling bell type). I liked the height and shape of the arch and the two sentinal cedars. The cedar hedge in the background was a good 20' tall - and clipped! I have no idea how you could clip it at that height.

The shape of the arch reminded me of one of the nicest iron arbours that I've seen. An old church on 'the main drag' had an arbour installed maybe 10-12 years ago. It's a series of gothic arches that match the church windows. There is wisteria started on it but I've never seen it bloom... It all gives a very cloister-like effect, which I assume was the intent. Randy stopped to take some pictures of it:

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All in all, a good day out but the tour was not up to it's usual standard.