2024  Garden Walk

Welcome to the Port Washington Garden Club's 2024 Garden Walk information page!

The Port Washington Garden Club's 2024 Garden Walk was a great success, with 250 visitors (and a number of children) visiting the gardens.

Questions and Answers...

Several garden features prompted questions from visitors, and since we feel the answers might be useful to a number of other people, we will post those below with their answers and, when possible, useful Internet links.

Please check back often over the next several days, as we collect and post some of these questions and answers...

Photos...

"Teaser" Video

YouTube link

The Gardens

Garden #1

A front yard display of colorful annuals leads to a garden railroad brought to life by a mother/son team. Jim is the railroad manager and has created an extensive G-scale train layout. His mom is the landscape designer who's provided beautiful vistas for the railroad's journey.

Fun for all ages!

Garden #2

This home owner inherited a neglected yard and is slowly constructing an extensive garden. He's cleared brush and trash and is designing around a central fire pit. He's started a cutting garden, has created raised beds for vegetables and blueberries and is preparing for a future greenhouse.

There are also plans for a future orchard and a wide array of annual containers. The gardener's favorite feature – the area around the front door, because it is finished.

Garden #3

An extensive front yard perennial garden provides a park-like setting for this vintage home. In the back yard there are water gardens, fountains, a woodland border and a dedicated vegetable garden. Containers provide additional growing space for edible figs, tomatoes and much more.

Jean Lord of Pine View Wildlife Rehabilitation Center will present a session on coexisting with wildlife at 10:30am.

Q&A

Q: What are the plastic bags on the apples and pears?

A: These are a handy technique to prevent the fruit from being damaged by insect larvae (worms/caterpillars). By using a ziploc bag that has been modified to serve as a barrier, any fruit with a stem can be protected from insects that cut through the skin of a fruit and lay an egg, which develops into a larva.

Fruit can also be protected through the use of pesticides. In the case of this garden, there are ponds near the apple and pear trees, and spraying pesticides would undoubtedly allow some to fall or drip into the pond, where it could kill fish, frogs and other desirable wildlife.

The other benefit to the bags is that, unlike pesticide spraying, the bags only need to be applied once, at the beginning of the year. Pesticides must be re-applied several times through the growing season, every 7 to 10 days, or more often if it rains. Overall, the bagging can be a huge time-, money- and labor-saving approach to insect control.

Video link: Ziploc Bagging

Garden #4

This former shade garden is in transition, so roses bloom next to lush hostas and shade plants in the borders that loop around this corner lot. The gardener's favorite plant is a red Japanese maple she's nurtured from twig size to tree.

Garden #5

On a narrow lot surrounded by garages, these gardeners have made a private oasis by planting new trees, using containers and creating a wide front-to-back yard sunny border garden to provide beautiful scenes indoors and out. There's also a comfortable seating area and grassy play space for the family pets.

Garden #6

From spring's first bluebells until frost, this garden shines with flowers. Borders loop around the house to an extensive back yard entertainment area where a clematis covered arch leads to raised gardens and perennial beds.

If you have any questions, please call Tom Hudson at 262-284-1948.