hidden garden tour 2014

** Disclaimer:If you're not a crazy plant lady, you will probably want to skip this long, long, long post.**

I got tickets to the "Hidden Garden Tour". Which basically means, I paid $13 to be able to drive all around UT county and legally trespass in people's yards. Cool huh? Well, it is if you're a crazy plant lady, like me.

The tour runs for two days. Friday, I went with my mamita, and I didn't take my camera, a move which I sorely regret. We saw some amazing yards and a few that were sort of meh. I suppose it all depends on your personal style and what appeals to you.

We really liked the yard of a woman that we know from Lindon, she had tons of flowers and that's what we love. We also saw a smallish farm/orchard which was just so-so. We saw a yard that didn't have one stitch of grass, just a million plants with all kinds of little walking paths leading to small garden rooms. It was a little more artsy than my personal preference. We saw a newer house with a small yard that had a pretty water feature but the yard was pretty sterile. We saw a beautiful yard right next to a ravine in Lehi that had so many trees it felt like we were up the canyon. They had a huge sunroom built right onto the south side of their house that had a stream running through it, along with a ton of plants growing inside. The garden I loved the most was up on the mountain in Pleasant Grove, almost under the "G". It was 2 1/2 acres and a darling little grandpa and grandma have lived there and taken care of the yard for 45 years. The yard was amazing. Flowers, trees, shady and sunny areas, tons of cherry and apple trees. It was pretty much heaven.

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Saturday I took Rachel with me. She's a crazy plant lady in training. I brought my camera so my mamita could see what she missed!

This first yard in Highland was sort of boring. Hardly any flowers, but a nice waterfall.

This yard was in Alpine, and it was really beautiful. Not that long ago it was a flat empty dirt lot. They've (well I assume, a landscaper) brought in all kinds of mature trees, several water features, and the lot had several different elevations.

The water feature looked much better in real life than in this picture.

Me gusta ferns.

The next house was in Alpine right up against the mountain. Where I personally, could never never live. I'd spend the entire summer having a heart attack that the mountain would catch on fire and burn my house down! But I guess these people aren't crazy like me.

Because of their side of the mountain location, they had a lot of terraces.

Behind Rachel you can see a vine covered bridge leading from the house to the backyard. Fancy and practical!

This picture doesn't really show how sloped this is, but I imagine this is an awesome sledding hill in the winter.

I'm looking down from above in this picture. On several of the terraces they had little gardens planted.

This house was also in Alpine. It was definitely professionally landscaped 'cause we saw a sign. Ha!

A cute garden shed and a basketball court on the left that you don't really notice because of all the trees.

We really liked these garden boxes. Rachel is determined to do this in our garden. How about it Stick?

This cat kept coming up and wrapping it's tail around Rachel's legs. Can you see the terror in her eyes?!?!?!? Apparently she does not like cats. She must have smelled good or something because the cat followed us around the rest of the yard and then out to our car, where Rachel told me to run over it. (I didn't.)

This house was in Cedar Hills. I liked the grasses.

I don't really consider myself a "rose person", in fact we inherited a few in our current yard and I've tried to kill them on purpose. But let me tell you, these roses smelled out of this world. Words can't even explain how heavenly their scent was. I wish I had some in my yard. Ha!

We liked the little round shrubs by Rachel's feet.

Mamita, we were just talking about this plant, and here it is, growing in a pot!

Another house in Cedar Hills. This one was pretty artsy.

Right in the front, they had a Little Free Library.

Which was awesome, and I want one.

A lot of the flower beds had little "fairy gardens" in them. Which isn't really my style, but it was sort of cute in an artsy crazy way.

The back corner of the backyard had the garden space. There were several  creative ways of growing things here that I'd never seen before.

This method of tomato growing really blew me away. One pole with the tomato tied to it. With just one stem growing up. All the side stems had been cut off!

Peas growing up some mesh.

Herbs and strawberries growing in cinderblocks.

This is an espalier apple tree. And I kid you not, each branch had been grafted in and was growing a different type of apple. Mind boggling, I tell you.

Another one of those one pole tomatoes.

Miniature peach trees, with actual fruit on them.

See this hammock? It's homemade with a couple of yards of canvas fabric. See the selvage below? The fabric had a couple of casings sewed on each end with a rope strung through. Clever, no?

The front of the house had flower beds all around the perimeter. And get this, there were sections arranged in rainbow color order.

Starting with red.

Then orange.

Then yellow.

Then green.

Then blue.

People are SO creative.

Again with the gorgeous roses. Maybe I'm changing my opinion.

The final house was in Cedar Hills. We were told that the owner specializes in all things "edible".

Sure enough, around the perimeter of this yard, all kind of trees, berries and edible things were growing.

We liked the swing because the back of the seats could move, so you could face one way or the other.

Then back over by the greenhouse, (which Rachel was slobbering over), we saw this row of potted trees. When I started reading their tags, my eyes about popped out of my head.

-Satsuma Mandrin
-Mexican Lime
-Eureka Lemon
-Wonderful Pomegranate
-Moro Bloodorange
-Ruby Red Grapefruit
-Tangerine

Frankly, it's astonishing that all these trees can be grown here in Utah.

And that was the end of the tour. We missed just one house, and all the rest were (for the most part), fun.

I'm pretty sure the Hidden Garden Tour 2015 tickets will be in my hand this same time next year.

yours truly,
The crazy plant lady

1 Comment

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Can I just say that I am dying. DYING!!!! I love everything about this and am so sad I missed it all. I have a million comments, but I can't think of them all now. Love everything and it all looks amazing. Hmmm.....apparently I am a crazy plant lady.....

Next year, I'm in!!!

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