Happy Monday GPODers!
This week we have a special treat courtesy of Kielian DeWitt, President of the Bitterroot Secret Garden Tour™ in the Bitterroot Valley of western Montana. What began as a desire to have some more fun, “gardeny activities” amongst a group of plant-loving friends, has blossomed into an annual garden tour that has raised over $120,000 dollars for local charities and welcomes tour attendees from across the US.
This past July, The Tour celebrated its 10th anniversary. Five more incredible gardens were showcased and $20,000 was raised for Explore the ARTS, an organization that supports and promotes the work of local artists through various outreach programs, classes, and workshops.
Lucky for us, Kielian was gracious enough to give us a mini, virtual tour of these gardens and provide us with amazing information on this inspiring community event. So each day we’ll be featuring a different garden from this year’s tour, starting with the Gordon Nichols’ gorgeous grounds full of seed-sown plants. Here’s a little bit of info on Gordon from the Garden Tour’s brochure:
Gordon is a native Montanan and grew up in Big Fork where he returned to live and raise his family after going away to college. As a boy, he gardened alongside his mother and grandmother in his own garden plot they set aside for him and it became a lifelong passion. Like many of his friends, he was in 4-H and had a steer and dairy cow but his preferred 4-H projects came from his love of planting all different kinds of plants and flowers from seed in his garden. When he was raising his own family he grew vegetables for the table but was always drawn to interesting plants and flowers and searched for unusual seeds to test their ability to grow (or not) in our Montana climate. Under his care, many grew and thrived.
He held a full-time postal job but for 10 years also had a retail evergreen nursery of his own that he started and maintained as a side business. The last few years before his retirement the nursery operated as a wholesale venture that he left behind when he and his wife, Lorna, moved to their current property. The amazing transformation he’s made to the 3 acres where they now reside has taken only 11 years to complete, all by his own hand.
There are ponds, oases of breeze-dancing flowers, found and collected yard art and a bedecked garden shed to be admired. (See if you can guess what the art work is that hangs from the shed roof.)
Sowing seeds is his preferred method of planting; he likes the simplicity of it, informal and wild, and calls it the ‘poor man’s system.’ It could be that he just loves the whole process from start to finish and doesn’t mind waiting until the next year to see his flowers and plantings come to full maturity.
One of two ponds excavated and landscaped by Gordon. The water lilies were just beginning to bloom and the lilac bushes heavily scented the air. Gordon made the intricate birdhouse that stands tall above the garden.
Gordon’s daises, rose campion (Lychnis coronaria and cvs., Zones 3–9), heliopsis, sweet William (Dianthus barbatus, Zones 3–9), dianthus and poppies grace the base of the Bitterroot Mountains.
Poppies, Bachelor’s buttons (Centaurea cyanus, Zones 3–8), Tiger Eyes sumac (Rhus typhina ‘Bailtiger’, Zones 3–8) and sea holly (Eryngium planum, Zones 4–8) fill in one entire garden area. Most of the perennials were seeded by Gordon when he bought the property 11 years ago.
Sunstruck false sunflower (Heliopsis helianthoides ‘Sunstruck’, Zones 4–9) and a beautiful bougainvillea stand sentry outside his garden shed. Gordon loves rusty antiques and graced the front roofline of this shed with found and saved items. Can you guess what they are?
Another of Gordon’s handmade birdhouses floats above a bed of hollyhocks, ligularia, variegated iris and poppies.
Be sure to join us tomorrow for a look at another sensational garden featured on The Tour. And let us know in the comments below if you correctly guessed what Gordon’s shed adornments are: Different sized, antique window sash weights!
Have a garden you’d like to share?
Have photos to share? We’d love to see your garden, a particular collection of plants you love, or a wonderful garden you had the chance to visit!
To submit, send 5-10 photos to [email protected] along with some information about the plants in the pictures and where you took the photos. We’d love to hear where you are located, how long you’ve been gardening, successes you are proud of, failures you learned from, hopes for the future, favorite plants, or funny stories from your garden.
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