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Garden tour provides fertile ground for cultivating home garden ideas

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Rotary Gardens' Home Garden Tour

Homes on Rotary Gardens' 16th annual Home Garden Tour

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Tony DiNicola

Rotary Gardens' Home Garden Tour

JANESVILLE — Retaining walls made of ton-size limestone slabs.

Fishponds, a pottery fountain and a flowing waterfall.

A fire pit and an 18-hole chipping golf course.

A gazebo with a fieldstone fireplace.

Plus sculptural art and thousands of plant varieties.

These are a few of local gardeners’ favorite things that you will have the opportunity to see Saturday, July 24, during Rotary Gardens’ 16th annual home garden tour.

It’s the perfect place to cultivate new ideas for your home garden, said Mark Dwyer, horticulture director at the local botanical gardens.

“This event is meant to inspire attendees with an interest in gardening, whether they are beginners or advanced gardeners,’’ he said in a news release about the event.

The unusual plants and landscape featured at seven Janesville home gardens plus Rotary Gardens will plant seeds of ideas with garden enthusiasts, whether their interest in this hobby is new or old, Dwyer said.

Proceeds benefit the continued operation and improvement of the gardens, he said.

Homeowners and gardens featured on this year’s tour are:

Peg and Ed Kures

4439 Hearthstone Drive

This whimsical outdoor garden includes 100 houseplants and has something for everyone to enjoy.

Gargoyles oversee this east side garden that features many individual gardens, each with its own focus, and created by its owners’ muscle and imagination.

Perennials and annuals add color all season to the garden, which also has a fishpond that has been known to attract a heron.

Other distinctive garden features include a pergola and a gazebo with orchids.

Dave and Kathy Cullen

225 Sinclair St.

You may recall this multi-level garden from when it was featured on the garden tour in 1997.

This time around, you’ll see twice as many gardens, which include perennials, deciduous and coniferous plantings.

Large urns and clay pots, filled with a variety of annuals, also are featured in intriguing groups.

Limestone slabs, which came from the University Hospital and Clinic construction site in Madison, make up the retaining wall and weigh up to 1.5 tons each.

Lynda and James Short

343 S. Lexington Drive

This garden has three main areas—a shade garden, a peony and other perennials garden plus a black raspberry garden bed.

The peonies, planted in the 1960s, were divided after 40 years to create an addtional 20-plus peony plants.

Accenting the gardens are an obelisk, pottery fountain, birdbath, lighthouse and quilts.

In addition to the mix of perennials and annuals, there is a kitchen garden with herbs and vegetables.

Quint and Rishy Studer

2552 Riverview Drive

Tumbled-stone pavement makes up the three-tier hardscape of this garden, which features a flowing waterfall and a fire pit with a sitting area that overlooks an 18-hole chipping golf course.

With the yard’s proximity to the Rock River, it’s common for wild turkey, deer, eagles, fox, coyotes and songbirds to visit this natural setting.

A riverbank of native Wisconsin plants can be seen from the cedar gazebo that has a fieldstone fireplace.

Stephen and Sue Van Galder

2106 Hillcrest Drive

These gardens create a feeling of country living in the city.

Behind the privacy of large pine trees, visitors will find beds of perennials and annuals.

Pieces of sculptural art accent paths leading to the backyard gardens where large container pots and pool-area gardens come into view.

Deer, ducks, raccoons, and fox can be found visiting this quiet oasis in the city.

Dave Petranek and Penny Cook

3516 Royal Road

This hillside yard, which one enters via a shaded formal brick walk, uses minimal fertilizer and no pesticides plus trees and shrubs that produce berries and seeds to attract wildlife that can explore more than 600 varieties of plants in numerous habitats.

The featured area is a native prairie, with a fish pond, woodland, herb gardens, fern grotto and an alpine garden.

A deck and shade structure provides space for stargazing, while sky chairs offer opportunities to relax and catch a cool breeze.

Theresa and Todd Ikard

115 Jackman St.

Interesting trees, perennials and annuals create privacy in the corner lot of this local garden with lush green grass.

Bursts of colorful flowers—some in hanging baskets and potted containers—enhance the assortment of trees, including spruce, Canadian hemlocks, a Bradford pear, magnolia, crabapple, cherry, basswood and a Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick.

Other odds and ends mesh into the yard to engage its owners and guests.

Rotary Gardens

1455 Palmer Drive

Named one of the best and least-known botanical gardens in the Midwest by the American Horticultural Society, this more than two-decades-old garden features 20-plus different gardens spread over 20 sprawling acres on Palmer Drive in Janesville.

More than 100,000 people visit these internationally themed gardens to catch glimpses of its more than 4,000 varieties of plants that have made it a national display garden for the American Hosta Society, American Hemerocallis Society, Hardy Fern Foundation, All-America Selections and Fleur select in Europe.

The gardens also conducts trial plantings for three seed companies and a nursery plus has been featured in more than a dozen episodes of “The Wisconsin Gardener” in addition to PBS’ “Garden SMART” and HGTV’s “Great American Gardens.”