Georgetown Garden Tour an Inspiration, Despite Rain
By • May 9, 2022 0 1448
Yes it was raining. Yes the blooms were drooping. Yes one had to juggle umbrellas trying not to poke people while negotiating the often narrow garden gates and hidden street entrances to eight private home gardens Saturday May 7 on the 92nd annual Georgetown Garden Tour. Still the reopening of the garden tour after two years of pandemic closure was welcomed and inspiring to gardeners and garden fans who just love a peek at Georgetown’s private homes’ outdoor living spaces.
The gardens are a model of what can be done in relatively small urban spaces. They featured a wide variety of professional and home-owner designs. One surprise was that five of the eight gardens had swimming pools: two were large rectangles, one a 1950s oval (with a floating unicorn in it) and two were wide one-lane lap pools with a double function of a garden pond with shaped Linden trees and statuary against side walls. Most all the gardens had water fountains with the pleasant sound (even in the rain) of falling water coming from spouts in statuary or spilling over the sides of tall ceramic urns.
Many gardens featured creative shapings of boxwood hedges to define garden “rooms” and walkways, several of which were laid with clean gravel paths (in whites and tans) that crunched cleanly as one walked. One home featured a large roof garden with spectacular views, lots of mirrors to expand those views and a gazebo roofing that dripped with thick fragrant (even in the rain) blossoms from a massive wisteria vine that went up three stories to spill through the pergola.
Gardens featured a variety of azaleas, crepe myrtle and clematis. One house had a huge fig tree topiary. Groundcovers were a mix of French and English thyme, non-edible wooly thyme and pachysandra. One historic home had a luscious herb garden directly outside the kitchen with sage, lavender, rosemary, thyme, basil, parsley and mint.
Many tour guests ($45 a ticket) were heard thanking the dozens of Georgetown Garden Club and Christ Church volunteers who put up the easy-to-find Garden Tour signs and staffed the soggy garden entrance tables throughout the day. Church volunteers baked hundreds of home-made cookies to put into small decorative bags at the reception. The only thing missing was a good hot cup of tea for the cold rain-soaked volunteers and guests at the end of the day.
Most of the back yards on the 2022 Georgetown Garden Tour had pools. Photo by Peggy Sands.
