Master Gardeners announce garden tour

Master Gardeners of Van Wert news

The Garden Walk is scheduled for Saturday, June 22, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The cost is $10 per adult. Tickets may be purchased at any of the gardens, while a sunflower sign prominently placed in the landowner’s yard designates each garden stop.
Refreshments will be available at various locations as well as a “gardener’s market” and a “miniature garden clinic” at the homes of the Master Gardeners on the walk. An additional location will offer a composting demonstration, with questions and answers afterward.

Following is the location and descriptions of the gardens:

Dave and Janice Kirchenbauer

Over the years, the Kirchenbauer Gardens, located at 303 N. Jefferson St., have grown from a small backyard of herbaceous peonies and one 75-year-old peony tree to a half-acre of peonies, peony trees, perennials, a variety of grasses, a shade garden, and a high berm of evergreens and roses. Another lot is situated close by, with a 30-by-100 foot vegetable garden and apple, peach and pear trees. Included in the area is a grape arbor with three varieties of grapes and then more roses, hydrangeas and perennials.

Be sure and visit the “miniature garden clinic” held by Sue Young and a “gardener’s market” at this location.

Dan and Jean Bulau

The Bulaus, who live at 1212 Second St., welcome area residents to their city garden. The garden started as a flower garden with a shaded area and a full sun area on their small city lot. For several years, they added a few perennials every year — often trading plants with other gardeners (isn’t it interesting how often plants have their own stories?). Now they have plants in bloom from early spring to late fall. Four years ago they purchased a derelict house next door and had it demolished. As a result of that yard expansion, they now have a vegetable garden, a strawberry patch and a few raspberries.

Remodeling and a deck provided another opportunity for a flower garden expansion. Professional landscaping in the front of the house and the side lot, and brick and mulch walkways, tie the lots and gardens together.

Dan Bulau loves to experiment and calls compost his secret ingredient, while his wife says she would like the garden better if the plants stopped moving around. They do agree, however, that the best part of gardening is sharing the wonders and joys of nature with their grandchildren.

There will be a composting demonstration at this stop. Feel free to direct questions to Dan Bulau and Master Gardener Amy Mosier.

Mike and Linda Stanley

The gardens of Mike and Linda Stanley, 10572 Ohio 118, have evolved through many years of deciding that there just had to be that one additional bed to add to the landscape. Driving by their home, one usually does not see any of the perennials that inhabit their back yard, unless it is in the early summer when their row of peonies blossom with various colors.  The flowerbeds started basically to make it easier to mow around their pine trees.  What happened after that is a story in itself.

The Stanleys try to have color in their garden throughout the summer — in other words, quite like a patchwork quilt. Many of their favorite plants are hydrangeas, hostas, clematis, and knockout roses.  Many of the plants have been gifts from friends or heirlooms from their family; in fact, it is a standing joke that many of the plants are pleasant to look at, but don’t ask the owners what the name of the plant is. Those looking for a garden that is informal, that has been landscaped by the owners, and rustic in charm, come to see the Stanleys’ gardens.

There is plenty of parking behind their house at the middle school, while parking on Ohio 118 could earn people a ticket.

Nate and Rachel Hoverman

Those who want to see a perfect garden should see the garden of Nate and Rachel Hoverman, 111 Boyd Ave., request that attendees skip this stop. Rules are not followed here, property lines are crossed and their “art” is composed of other people’s junk.

The garden began before the house was purchased. The Hovermans always admired the house and had hour-long conversations about how to make it beautiful again long before it was theirs. When it became clear that Van Wert would be their home, they looked at just one house. Months later it was theirs.

Nearly 80 plants were uprooted from the rental down the street and spent the winter in pots behind the garage. Existing landscaping was removed and new was designed and installed by Rachel Hoverman, a horticulturist at Beining Nursery and Landscaping.

A flagstone patio, with inlaid antique grindstones was a necessity to cover two giant cisterns that are original to the 1915 Dutch Colonial residence. A giant ash was removed, but lives on as a rustic pergola created by Nate Hoverman, a fifth grade teacher at Van Wert Elementary School. Near it, a redwood was planted in memory of a great family dog.

The vegetable garden, whose design was based on a fountain at Longwood Gardens, has received two revisions. It was originally half the size and had a formal four-square design. Finding vegetable gardening addicting, it has doubled in size in the four years the Hovermans have lived here.

The couple will tell people the garden isn’t perfect, but they love it for the time it allows them to spend together. They hope area residents enjoy it as much as they do.

Art and Connie Weber

Art and Connie Weber, 1049 Grand Prix Drive, want the public to know they do not have a neat, pristine garden; rather, they have a garden for their own enjoyment and fun.

Each year, new plants are added, sometimes adding another strip of garden to accommodate them.  Space is provided for both a flower area and a food-producing area, though Connie Weber has been known to interplant vegetables with her flowers “because they are pretty”.  Art Weber has strawberries, plums, peaches, apples, cherries, raspberries, vegetables (including potatoes in boxes), and such in his part. His wife has roses, peonies, hydrangeas, butterfly weeds, lilies, and such in her part.

Trees, such as smoke trees, dogwoods, a redbud, crabapple, a bald cypress, a red buckeye and whatever “catches their eye” have been added each year.  All the beautiful bulbs will be in hiding when people see the yard in late June, but there are hundreds of them. Both Webers enjoy talking “gardening”, so come to share experiences of what works and what doesn’t. Don’t expect perfection; it still eludes them.

Mark and Cindy Hurless

Mark and Cindy Hurless, 1274 Madison Boulevard, have lived at their current location for about seven years and began their landscaping efforts by implementing geometric shaped beds to match the angles of their home, rather than using traditional curved beds. Within these beds they have a combination of evergreens and Bradford pear trees.

The front rock garden sports a wrought iron frame that shows off an espalier apple tree as a conversation piece. In their fourth year they began adding natural rock landscaping in the front and side yards, along with stone steps leading to a beach area that sits just off of the pond at the back of the property.

Their gardening style incorporates traditional perennials like hydrangeas, roses, peonies, irises, and lilies, and they are particularly fond of using a lot of green with occasional splashes of color. The pool area is finished with river rock and hardy plants that can tolerate a lot of outdoor activity.

The large area is complete with a private garden and pergola, and provides space for summer bonfires or just a relaxing view of the pond fountain in the early evening. An herb garden, designed and planted three years ago, is visible outside the kitchen window.

The hill that borders the pergola provides a barricade of evergreens along with daffodils in the spring and a variety of plants like hostas, hydrangeas, and lilies, with a host of annuals planted each year to add interest and color. Seasonal whim determines what beds are changed or upgraded: two years ago asparagus and strawberry beds were added, and three years ago a vegetable garden was added to the east lot of the home.

Gardening friends and experts like Robbie Adams, Troy Treece and Rachel Hoverman have helped over the years and have made landscaping enjoyable. The Hurlesses are happy to share their love of landscaping with others.

The Garden of the Senses

At the Garden of the Senses, next door to Wilkinson’s Printing in the 100 block of East Main Street,
 Master Gardeners of Van Wert have created a garden in downtown Van Wert, located in an empty lot between two businesses that had been used as a parking lot. This lovely oasis today contains trees, flowers, herbs, and shrubs with raised beds and brick walkways curving around the flowers and trees with benches to stop and rest and enjoy the peacefulness of the garden.

A pergola was built on the spot, which in summer is adorned with hanging baskets and during the Christmas season houses a stately decorated Christmas tree. The Garden of the Senses can be viewed on Main Street just east of Balyeat’s Coffee Shop.

The Children’s Garden

The Children’s Garden is located across from the airport on Leeson Avenue.
This garden, located in Smiley Park on the southwest side of Van Wert, has been a project of local Master Gardeners classes and also provides a hands-on learning facility for children and their families.

A gazebo is positioned in the center, with several theme gardens radiating out like spokes on a wheel. The first garden is a large butterfly-shaped garden outlined by flagstone and incorporating vibrant plantings that butterflies love. A walkway through the center of the garden leads to the colorful Butterfly House, provided by KAM Corporation, which contains lush plantings of aromatic flowers that attract the many species of butterflies that make their residence in the House and garden.

This garden was designed to promote education, horticulture, the arts, and to be environmental.

Historical Society Museum Herb Garden

The Historical Society Museum’s herb garden, located at 602 N. Washington St. in Van Wert, is designed to the period of the log house and contains plants that would be grown and used for a family living in the log house in the 1800s.

The herb garden is divided into several raised beds with paths between them and includes a culinary, medicinal, household, cutting, biblical, fragrance and vegetable gardens. The Evergreen Garden Club designs, plants and maintains the garden throughout the year.

Proceeds from the Garden Walk will be used by the Master Gardeners to maintain their two garden projects: Garden for the Senses and Children’s Garden, and will be useful in supporting the Master Gardeners’ ongoing future educational projects.