Hydrangea Festival 2016 - Garden Tours

Now it is time for the Garden Tours ! Alot of people do not know that the Hydrangea is a relatively inexpensive plant with many varieties and is native to the Georgia area. It is easily grown, matures quickly, and is an heirloom plant. I had the chance to see these beautiful plants and others in their nature habitat .

Famous interior and garden designer Susanne Hudson whose work and gardens have been featured in "Better Homes and Garden", "Southern Living" and "Country Living" magazine. Her garden boasts of hundreds of boxwoods; 235+ Hydrangea with over 25 named varieties, and 2 ponds which were uncovered by her while digging and excavating. I had a chance to visit her 100 year old home outdoor space and rustic tree house during the garden visit tour.

I then had a chance to visit the Jeri and Benny Farmer backyard garden on the garden visit tour. Their garden is a French inspired gravel garden due to the large trees which caused unhealthy grass to grow. The garden now boost over 200 Hydrangea with 22 named varieties.

Sandra and Gene Newborn two acre tract tranquil environment and wonderful backyard retreat was another place on the garden tour. I had a chance to see not only the hydrangeas but also seen roses, vegetable garden, small flower beds, two ponds and a chicken coop! The Newborn's were able to show a delightful way of country living in a city environment.

Mr. Winston Moreland who serves on the Douglasville's City Council and his wife Debby who serves on the Downtown Development Authority and Keep Douglasville Beautiful restored a older home in the Douglasville city area. The backyard garden of this home incorporate many varieties Hydrangea which is about more than 160 of them. Ms. Debby Moreland was awarded as 2015 Douglas County Miniature Vegetable Garden of the year. Click here to see my pictures.

The Ooten's garden is on a hillside in a very woody 2.5 acres area where it contains a large virgin pines, dogwoods, native azaleas and hydrangeas, ferns, hollies, rhododendrons, camellias, roses, four varieties of magnolia trees, moss and large native trees. Very beautiful land to see.

Ms. Zenna Disharoon began reading and studying gardening magazines before creating her lovely garden. She has a small creek running through her property with a little bridge leading to hundreds of ferns and large swamp magnolias. The garden features many varieties of Hydrangeas, over 30 varieties of Hosta, Japanese Maples, boxwoods, iris, day lilies and hellebores.

The last home I went on the garden tour is the Powers garden which is in a large in-town yard. Mr. Powers has a impressive garden that contains peaches, olive trees, mulberries, tomatoes, corn and carrots to name a few. Mr. Powers has a passion for edibles and plants that he collects a variety of heirlooms seeds so that they can be collected for next year's crop. He also has special plants like Hosta, forsythia, tiger lilies and Catawba or catalpa tree - that is a tree whose sole source of the catalpa caterpillars that make excellent fishing bait. Mr. Powers is teaching his sons to look for usual edible plants to plant in the garden. Those plants are passion flower, lamb's quarters, wild violet, henbit, chickweed, Hosta, day lillies dead nettle, wild plantain and dandeloins. And of course Mr. Powers does also have a growing collection of Hydrangeas.

I really enjoyed this year's garden tours and next week is the exhibit gardens! Click here for all of the pictures of the garden tours!