Spring 2013 San Diego County Garden Events

A hillside butterfly garden on display in the 2012 Clairemont Garden Tour

It is officially Spring and it’s time to think about attending one or more of this season’s garden events. I encourage you to attend a tour and plant sale in your neighborhood or explore a new neighborhood! Here is a list of events for the San Diego county area:

Through May 12: Visit the Flower Fields in Carlsbad, CA – See the Ranunculus flowers bloom in patterns yet unseen in the 15 year history of the event. Cost $11 for adult, $6 for child. Event website

March 22 - 24, Orchid Show at Scottish Rite Center in Mission Valley. Event website

April 6, 9 AM to 4 PM San Diego Horticultural Society 25th Annual Garden Tour of seven diverse Poway gardens sponsored by San Diego Home and Garden Magazine. Rumor has it that this is one of the best garden tours in the county. Event website 

April 6 - 7, Southern California Plumeria Cutting Sale at Room 101, Casa del Prado, Balboa Park. This free admission event is a cutting sale (cash and check only) with demonstrators and vendors on hand to offer advice on caring for plumeria. Event website

April 13,  9 AM to 3 PM, Fallbrook Garden Tour displays seven gardens featuring water conservation and native vegetation. Tour begins at Fallbrook Historical Society. Event website

April 20, 9 AM to 12 PM, Point Loma Garden Club Annual Plant Sale at Westminster Presbyterian Church. Event website

April 20 - 21, San Diego Rose Show at Liberty Station, Point Loma. Amateur and expert presentation of roses. Cost is $5 per adult, children under 12 are free. Event website

April 20, 10 AM to 4:30 PM, 8th Annual Encinitas Garden Festival and Tour displays eighteen gardens focusing on the use of space. Gardening Sale and exhibitions will take place as well. Event Website

 April 21,  2 PM, 11th Annual Seaside Native Plant Garden Tour, St. Mary's School, Oceanside. Tour will showcase eighteen front yard gardens that focus on native plants. Event website

April 27, 10 AM to 4 PM, 12th Annual Point Loma Garden Walk will feature ten neighborhood gardens and a large plant sale. Event Website

April 27, 9 AM to 3 PM, Friends of East County 18th Annual Garden Tour features six gardens and a craft show. Event website

April 27, 9 AM to 3 PM, 6th Annual Ramona Garden Club Tour and Sale, Ramona Library. This tour will feature six gardens and a large Plant Sale. Event website

April 27,  9 AM to 4 PM, 19th Annual Spring Garden Festival, Cuyamaca College. Learn about urban farming and sustainability. Loads of activities for all ages and gardening skill levels. Please review website because there is some discrepancy between on-line resources of the actual date. Some sites say April 27, others April 28. Event Website

May 4, 10 AM to 4 PM, Clairemont Garden Tour. This 17th Annual event features twelve homes in Clairemont, Bay Park, and Bay Ho. Check out the cool gardens in central San Diego, in the neighborhood I call home! Event website

May 4, Master Gardener Spring Seminar, County of San Diego Operation Center, Kearney Mesa. Take a class from the San Diego Master Gardeners, view demonstrations, and purchase items at the garden market place. Event Website

May 11, 10 AM to 4 PM, Mission Hills Garden Club Walk, Mission Hills Nursery. One of the most highly regarded garden tours in the county in the area of historic Mission Hills. Information is currently forthcoming on garden club website.

May 18, 10 AM to 4 PM, 15th Annual Secret Garden Tour, La Jolla and Muirlands features six secluded, old-growth gardens. The garden locations are a tightly maintained secret until the day of the tour. Event website

May 18, San Diego Floral Association Historic Garden Tour  and Plant Sale will showcase eight gardens in the eclectic and historic neighborhoods of Burlingame and North Park. Event Website

Take a stroll through the garden gate - you'll never know what you'll find!

Through the Garden Gate

Local garden tours are a wonderful way to find inspiration, meet local gardeners, and support your community. Garden tour season in San Diego officially started last weekend, but there are plenty more offerings in neighborhoods all over the county. The San Diego Union-Tribune has compiled a lengthy list of events - more tours seem to crop up each year! I contribute this to the ever increasing popularity of gardening in general as well as the desires to grow one's own food and eat locally. 

The Clairemont Garden Tour I attended in 2009 had a huge impact on me: I progressed from dabbling in the dirt to setting up a complete kitchen/ modern potager garden and I participated in the tour in 2010. Garden Tours can take you to unexpected places, for they pique imagination and determination. Here are some pictures to tempt you to take a journey through the garden gate . . .

For more information about my experience attending and participating in the Clairemont Garden Tour, please go to my blog index and click on 'Garden Tour.'

15th Annual Clairemont Garden Tour 2011

This year's garden tour felt less like a garden tour and more like a landscape tour. Landscapes are pretty, no doubt, but they lack the heart and soul of a true garden. Turning a landscape into a garden takes so much more than building basic structures: it takes time for plants to grow into their placements, there is art of choosing the best possible plants, and most importantly, the outdoor space must be meaningful to the owner.

The gardens on this year's tour lacked that sense of meaning. Rather, they were lovely landscapes designed by professionals. Most gardens had an over abundance of hardscape, drought tolerant plants, and many had pools. There was very little diversity; we saw the same succulents at many yards, and xeriscaping was the new fashion du jour. Hubby found it very ironic that the pool owners touted the most xeriscaped of the gardens being shown. All the water guzzling plants one could fit in a yard would not waste the amount of water that a pool does.

This tour lacked the show stoppers of year's past. There was no unbelievably mind-blowing Sie Garden terracing (2010) or whimsical canyon trails of the Banta Garden (2009). The 2011 yards felt forced and lacked creativity. The were overly dependent on professionals, which is so antithetical to the do-it-yourself nature of Clairemont. It was Clairemont attempting to be bourgeoise - Clairemont should never attempt to be anything but its wonderful, diverse, blue collar, hard working, diamond-in-the-rough self. And for this false identity portrayed by this garden show, I am most disappointed. I am getting down off my soap box now; time to go work in my own beautiful, messy, DIY garden.


For more garden pictures, please click here.

Support your Neighborhood Garden Tour! (March Bloomday)

With spring just around the corner, many San Diego County neighborhoods have been preparing for their annual garden shows. These tours are great inspiration to your garden endeavors as well as help develop appreciation for unique and diverse local communities. 

I plan to attend the Encinitas Garden tour on April 30th and my near and dear favorite, the Clairemont Garden Tour on May 7th (I hosted my garden in this tour last year). For a list of all local garden tours, please go to Spring Getaways, courtesy of the San Diego Union Tribune.