Familiar and exotic flowers and stonework decorate the six homes of the Historic Fort Worth Hidden Gardens Tour

If you’re a gardener or a plant lover, next weekend you may want to check out the Hidden Gardens Tour sponsored by Historic Fort Worth. A kind of pub crawl for plant lovers, this year the tour will visit gardens in the area surrounding Ridgelea Country Club. Ridgelea has just come of an age eligible for historic preservation, and with its large-sized lots and many period (1950′s era) details and landscape design concepts, it turns out to be an excellent site for exploring the potential of gardening in North Texas.

A Japanese style bridge arches cozily over a swimming pool in this Asian-themed garden on the tour

The tour consists of 6 homes. The gardens were chosen for creative use of space, diverse plantings, unique sites, ourdoor living, and overall aesthetics.

The owners of the homes on the tour have incorporated stonework, statuary, water, both natural and engineered, and plantings of shrubs, groundcovers, flowers and trees both local and exotic to create separate worlds in their own backyards.

The flavor of the tour is both nostalgic and optomistic.  In the 50′s, automobiles had just become the general mode of transit, the country was growing rapidly, and people expected prosperity and expansion. As you walk through the gardens, you can see how the designers  incorporated the outdoor ideals of that age, using large windows in the houses, creating outdoor patios off the kitchen for dining al fresco,  or placing a wooden bench just where you’d need it for relaxing under a tree. Looking out over boats tied up on one of Ridgelea’s two secluded lakes, one does seems to have stepped into a another time.

A swan comes to investigate the garden tour at a home off Bal Lake

Arching trees form a canopy over the backyard of this contemporary home next to a creek, making for a secluded retreat.

I visited the gardens yesterday morning with the docent/volunteers who were getting ready to host the event. They will be stationed along the tour, meeting people at the various houses and answering questions. Many of these garden hosts are Tarrant County Master Gardeners, who will be wearing large blue nametags. Master Gardeners have a wealth of information about how to make a North Texas garden, having been trained extensively by Texas Agricultural Extension. If you have a problem in your landscape, you can ask and get an answer that’s both well informed and local.  Some of the master gardeners specialize in conventional methods; other focus on purely organic gardening technique.

How To See The Tour:

Saturday, June 13^th the gardens will be open between 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.  Sunday, June 14^th The gardens are open between noon and 4:00 p.m.

Admission: $15 per person in advance of the tour; $20 per person on tour days.

Rain or Shine!

For information or to obtain tickets contact Historic Fort Worth at 817-336-2344 or visit  www.historicfortworth.org. Tickets will also be available at Archie’s Gardenland, 6700 Camp Bowie Boulevard, Dorian’s Designs, 2701 South Hulen, Into the Garden, 4600 Dexter Avenue, and Into the Garden,4527 McKinney Avenue, Dallas

Proceeds from the Hidden Gardens of Fort Worth Tour benefit preservation programs at Historic Fort Worth, Inc. including the ongoing maintenance and operations of Fort Worth’s two cattle baron mansions, the Ball-Eddleman-McFarland House and Thistle Hill.