Saturday, September 29, 2012

The San Antonio Herb Society Garden Tour: The "Wildscape" that wasn't

We had a great time on the San Antonio Herb Society Garden Tour last Saturday.  It was a tour of real gardens done by homeowners throughout our city and they, along with knowledgeable vounteers, were on hand to answer questions.  Many provided handouts describing the theme of their gardens complete with plant lists.  To see the first five gardens on the tour start here.

Although I prefer to show my city at its best, I must also call them as I see them.  We toured six gardens but this final one was not worthy of being on this tour.  Sorry to say that this one garden was a complete waste of time.
With nine gardens available to tour all across the city in just six hours, we spent a lot of time paring down the selection to six and mapping our route in advance.  I was looking forward to seeing this garden as it was closest to my house and who doesn't want to see what other gardeners in their area are doing.  This garden was titled "Wildscape and Butterfly".


Nice welcome sign, but a weedy and unkempt yard is not "wildscape".

This is not a wildscape in the backyard either, it's a haphazard collection of flower pots stuck in among some scrawny groundcover.   While it might be OK as a typical backyard it is not worthy of a garden tour.


At least the Butterfly Garden was labeled (although I'm not sure butterflies can read), but there was nothing much here that butterflies would like except a yellow saucer of sugar water.  The handout was a list of basic butterfly information and plant lists from the internet.  Nothing specific to this garden.



If this stop on the tour was meant to encourage gardeners to attract butterflies it was a big-time miss.  The venue should be interesting in some way, maybe even a bit inspiring and this was neither.



The sponsor provided a substantial gift certificate to the owners but this was not worthy of their generous gift, and they had no part in the selection process.

We left three gardens off the list, I wish this had been one of them. 

On a brighter note, the San Antonio Herb Society is a good organization which is one of the sponsors of the popular San Antonio Herb Market event each year. This year the market is on October 20th at The Pearl.  Overall this first annual tour was a good event and I would expect a more careful selection next year.

10 comments:

  1. What a disappointment! I agree, if a garden is open to the public then it should provide some kind of inspiration and be interesting. This looks like a "before" picture. Maybe with some gentle guidance this garden could be really great. Go talk with them Shirley:)

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    1. "Before" is right, it's not bad for a typical back yard but not ready to inspire the public on a garden tour which costs people valuable time, money, and gas, an important consideration these days.

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  2. I wonder if that property was having a down year? That is disappointing. If it were weedier with some non-native trees, filled with visitors delighting in it's "eco-diversity" or some such verbiage, I would have known you were on an Abq garden tour, and didn't call to say hi!

    Well...you did see some inspiring gardens, though, you must admit! I need to catch back up on those.

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    1. "Eco-diversity" is a good one, perhaps they just needed a new title. At least that would have been more descriptive and we would know what to expect.

      No excuses. It's been a good year for lawns and gardens, especially in this part of town. Everything looks better around here this year. If it's a bad year, then don't put your garden on tour.

      Of course I'll call when we go to ABQ.

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  3. Most tours that I've been on have the proud homeowners/gardener present to answer questions, were they? Must have been awkward if they were.

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    1. They were on hand but I didn't see anything to discuss. He seemed surprised to see the camera and not surprised we left quickly.

      Enthusiastic homeowners were on hand at all the stops. The folks with the xeric garden had photos showing the hard work it took to get their front landscaping in place. Volunteers had clearly done their homework as well making it a very good tour overall.

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  4. Shirley, was this the house on the north side off of Jones Maltsberger? Theone with the Texas Parks & Wildlife representative? If it was, I agree, it shouldn't have been on the tour. I didn't learn or see anything new. Love your blog!

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    1. No this was a different garden, I thought the one you mention might not be that great either so I chose to go to a different one.

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