Gardeners love to share. Not only do they like sharing practical gardening tips, but they also like to share the pleasures of savoring a garden.
Sensory pleasures abound behind every garden gate. The scent of blossoms fills the air. A gurgle of water beckons. Light dances from the foliage of trees. When you can experience all these delights in one day it can only mean one thing—it’s garden tour day!
Every year for the past seventeen, volunteers for the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden in Oakdale have organized the opportunity for the public to visit private gardens right here in the Pittsburgh area. Called The Town and Country Tour, it gives visitors access to numerous large, estate-like gardens in the surrounding suburbs of Pittsburgh as well as small, welcoming gardens in city neighborhoods.
This year’s tour on Sunday, June 28th will showcase fourteen appealing gardens for you to delight in and learn from—after all, gleaning ideas is another pleasure of garden touring. This year’s gardens were selected for their inventive solutions for creating outdoor rooms that enhance the homeowners’ enjoyment of their yards.
To whet your appetite, let’s take a look back at a few of the outstanding gardens that were open to the public last year.
This French Manor style home with its characteristic floor length windows is stand-alone exquisite, but its beauty is all the more enhanced by the fact that all of the rooms both open out to, and offer alluring views of, the garden.
The garden rooms complement corresponding rooms of the home and truly allow for the family to embrace the outdoors.
The use of cut Pennsylvania bluestone and flagstone on the terraces and pool deck plays an important role in unifying the home with the garden as well as adding elegance to the floors of the garden rooms.
Ten years ago the homeowners, Jeffrey and Patty Kendall, were influenced to build the home after seeing an article about a French-style Manor home in a magazine. It made a lasting impression on them. It also inspired trips abroad to tour French Manor homes and gardens
Patty, a landscape architect, used those influences to great advantage when she designed this garden for her family home, artfully creating connections between the home and garden.
Adding paradise to perfection, this sculpted inground pool is just off of the family room and kitchen.
Disguised by planters and a classical fountain, even the hot tub blends in with this garden’s artful design.