This Saturday's South End Garden Tour will proceed with a familiar format but a singular significance this year as it demonstrates our community's ability to rebound after record-breaking and paralyzing snows of just a few months ago. The self-guided tour, which includes 25 sites encompassing community gardens, private-residence gardens and landmarks such as the South End Branch Library Park at 685 Tremont Street and the South Burying Ground on Washington Street, commences at the library park at 10:00 AM on Saturday, June 20, rain or shine, and ends at 4:00 PM.
As it has for the past four years, the tour will feature artists painting at sites along the tour route, and those paintings will be available for purchase at the reception following the tour. The 2015 tour showcases other highlights both historical and brand new, including a historic home and brand-new improvements to gardens on the route. Tickets cost 20 dollars in advance or 25 on the tour day and can be purchased on-line or at participating local businesses including sponsors Mahoney's and Whole Foods Market at 15 Westland Avenue as well as on the day of the tour.
Maryellen Hassell, chairperson of the South End Garden Tour committee, said that ticket sales were going well at press time, but did not have specific numbers. "If the weather is forecast to be good, lots of tickets are sold the few days before the Tour," she explained. Proceeds benefit the South End and Lower Roxbury Community Gardens.
Two garden spots on the tour will unveil new projects that add both beauty and utility to their respective sites. The library park has a work in progress, an aesthetic/environmental installation called Light Well that consists of a low wall that can serve as seating with lighting and a planter that will double as a rainwater filtration system.
Light Well was one of the winners of last year's Public Space Invitational design contest, and was created by three South End-based architects, Michelle Laboy, Joshua Fiedler and Seth Wiseman. The plan for Light Well was presented at the June 2 meeting of the South End Landmark District Commission by representatives of the Mayor's Office of New Urban Mechanics (MONUM) and approved. A spokesperson for MONUM said that they hope to have the installation ready in time for the tour.
Northampton Street Community Garden, also part of this year's garden tour, has sought to put its best foot forward for visitors by rallying gardeners to get the garden in tip-top shape and by installing a new patio and herb garden to be used for grilling and entertaining. (Disclosure: the writer is a member of the Northampton Street Community Garden.)
A gardener donated a grill in 2014 and last month, work began on the patio. "This spring we cleared and prepped the plot for bricks. Andrew Heller was instrumental in securing the donated bricks. Nathan Elam, Andrew Heller and James Nagle have done all the brick hauling and laying," garden co-coordinator Jon Pate reported in an e-mail. The patio is surrounded by a border combining beautiful blooms and fragrant herbs enhancing both the sights and flavors of the garden. Pate, a landscape architect and partner in the firm Pate Adams, offered the opinion that the snow was not a detriment to the garden as it was to so many other aspects of city life.
"Our garden didn't have any damage that I'm aware of from the snow. Spring planting for peas and lettuces were slightly delayed," he observed. "Snow is an excellent insulator from the cold, and helps protect plants through the winter. Besides that, you may have heard it's a 'poor man's fertilizer'."
A historic stop on this year's tour is the home of business consultant Randi Grohe Lathrop adjacent to the Rutland/Washington Community Garden. Both Lathrop and her house are deeply rooted in South End history: the house itself is the last wooden house in the South End, dating back to the late 18th or early 19th century, and Lathrop's grandfather settled in the South End upon emigrating from Germany in the late 1800s.
Lathrop commented via e-mail, "The garden tour approached me last year about being on the tour since our "city" backyard is connected by my two neighbors' yards, too. We also are lucky enough to have two community gardens that surround our house. We have the best of both worlds. It truly is a treasure to be surrounded by these gardens and also have a small "city" garden. I am an avid gardener and love to work in it. My peonies are 50 years old, originally from my dad and have been moved four times. I am spiritually connected to the South End in many ways."
For further information on the garden tour and ticket sales, please visit
http://www.southendgardentour.org/ticket/