Every other year the Extension Master Gardeners group hosts a tour of yards that are worthy of poking your head over the fence and inspiring some ideas for your own garden. This year is no exception; the Master Gardeners of Douglas County have compiled a collection of nine outdoor spaces to motivate, enlighten and educate anyone who chooses to partake in the tour. The weekend long event not only boasts the nine-showcased gardens but there are also educational demonstrations taking place every hour at the Douglas County Fairgrounds and selected gardens. The demonstrations will touch on such topics as ground covers for both sun and shade, how to best prune trees and shrubs, rain gardens, conifers in Kansas, and herb gardening.

The nine gardens have been chosen as stellar examples of the following categories: A neo-Victorian garden, a cottage memorial garden, a woodland shade garden, a garden in a new subdivision, a garden featuring formal and informal aspects, the blending of the garden and a pond in an outdoor space, the established mixed garden and the evolving country garden.

I was fortunate enough to preview three of the gardens which will be on view, the woodland shade garden lovingly coddled by Master Gardener Jack Landgrebe, Arliss Stebbins’s garden which is a wonderful example of a garden with well-established mixed borders, and Master Gardener Stan Ring’s garden which blends the garden and pond flawlessly.

Woodland Shade Garden

When Jack and Carolyn Landgrebe moved into this unassuming ranch house just south of Hillcrest school in 1963 the yard consisted of a few small Locust trees. In the past forty-two years their yard has been constantly changing and adapting to the whim of those Locust trees that are now the size of two four story buildings. Where there once was only sun has now become a lush, tropical feeling, woodland shade garden. Jack Landgrebe’s interest in gardening really took off after he retired from the University of Kansas as an Organic Chemistry professor in 2002. Landgrebe became a distinguished Master Gardener in 2003 and has stayed extremely active with the group and at keeping his own hands dirty molding and shaping this incredible shade garden.

The Landgrebe’s had to continually adapt to their growing trees. The grass would die every year for lack of sun. So, Jack began adding volcanic rock, paths, water features and ground covers. He is so in tune with ground covers that he will be giving demonstrations on them in his yard all weekend.

The first thing I was immediately drawn to in the Landgrebe’s yard was the wild Ginger used as a ground cover in the front yard. This bushy, wide-leafed plant pillowed around the trunk of one of the giant Locusts and seemed to be almost baiting squirrels to take a plunge from one of the tall branches. There is a bit of a lawn in the front yard, which Jack claims the key to a shade lawn is using the correct, seed and re-applying that seed at least twice a year. But this outdoor oasis’s awe inspiring space is not what is in the front yard but what lurks behind the house, through the Clematis covered trellis and behind the gate awaits a jaw dropping woodland shade garden.

Bubbling fountains, an urn teetering precariously on its side as water spills over it’s lip, a bog with a sign that any Jayhawk fan can appreciate declaring, “Beware of the Bog”, a pond full of gold fish and water plants, a giant frog chasing after a giant fly cast from metal- these are just some of the fabulous features that Jack Landgrebe has thoughtfully placed throughout his yard. But, these man-made items are only there to enhance the true star of the show- his shade plants!

Japanese Maples, lirope, hostas, coralbells, three varieties of lungworts, ferns, Butter Bur, horsetail, Pink Turtlehead, are all nestled in this musty, wet space. Visitors to the garden meander down expertly situated paths that bring you up close and personal to every plant. Variegated Alba Dogwoods literally light up the shaded space with their leaves trimmed in white, the white seems to be glowing in juxtaposition next to the hundreds of various shades of green. Every space is full of a plant and if not a plant growing vertically than one of the many types of spreading ground covers from Aquatic Celery to Creeping Jenny, to Ginger, Vinca, Bishop’s Weed and Buttered Popcorn.

If this makes you hungry for some ideas for your shady space to devour then go check out Jack Landgrebe’s woodland shade garden this weekend.

Mixed Borders Garden

Arliss Stebbins likes plants that flower. Most every plant in his yard, which is nestled in the hills near Quail Run School, has had a flower that has expired or will be in bloom either this summer of fall. Stebbins has a wide array of flowering plants showing off a rainbow of colors on this warm spring day, his garden boasts nearly every color imaginable burning brightly in the afternoon sun. It wasn’t always this way however. This yard used to host more tennis shoes marking up the grass while sliding into base and little boys and girls voices echoing in the hills as a fly ball would rocket towards a neighbor’s window than it did delicate flowers in bloom. But as Stebbins’s children have left the house Arliss’s interest in gardening has flourished while his infield game has probably suffered.

Arliss Stebbins has transformed his garden into a canvas of color. He has no fences but has created his own space through the use of ornamental grasses and stones bordering his property. A few of those stones he has expertly carved celestial images on as a recently acquired hobby. The back end of his lot is for sun-loving plants many of which are native to Kansas. While much of the rest of the yard is covered with a wide array of various roses, from the climbing rose New Dawn that arches over the Adirondack swing to the four varieties of David Austin English Roses and the Granda Flora Queen Elizabeth Rose. The large screened-in porch is a staging place for an evening cocktail, catching up on the family’s activities, listening to the water trickle from the fountains and gazing out at the vista, which are the neighborhood’s gardens in bloom.

The Stebbins’s like not having fences and feel as if garden rooms are a passing fad, as Arliss say’s of his view, “It is like looking out onto a big park with our yard and the neighbors yards in full sight. We have such great neighbors that the gardening bug has become rather infectious around here and everyone is getting involved.”

Across the expansive yard and beyond a few lilac bushes sits the Stebbins’s neighbors, Master Gardener Stan Ring and his wife Mary Ann. They too are participating in the Mater Gardeners Tour as a shining example of how to blend a garden and pond into one flawless entity.

Blending Pond & Garden

If the Stebbins’s have a variety of different plants than the Ring’s have a few plants but many of them. Like irises for instance, the Ring’s property is peppered with over fifty varieties of irises in every shade and color imaginable. The main focal point of the Ring’s yard is the large pond with a waterfall and a large magnified floating ball that make the goldfish look ten times their actual size when they swim by.

The pond was built in 2000 and has since become the central point for the entire yard. It is a fantastic area to sit and watch the birds. The pond blends into the Ring’s landscape effortlessly as if it has always been there. With the expertly chosen plants such as buddleia, Japanese Maple, columbine, lilies and irises throughout the yard co-existing with the water plants such as lotus, horsetail, water lilies and cattails the Rings have truly blended a whole new aspect to the landscapes ecosystem as flawlessly as can be expected.

So, if you are in need of some inspiration, education, ideas or just want to be a voyeur for the day go experience the Extension Master Gardeners Tour, you will find it a marvelous weekend outdoor adventure.

Jack Landgrebe’s top ten shade plants:

• Bleeding Hearts
• Columbine
• Hosta (Sum & Substance, Francis William)
• Astillbe (Deutchland)
• Hellebores
• Fern (Lady Fern, Japanese Painted Fern)
• Lily of the Valley
• Hydrangea
• Herman’s Pride
• Coralbell (Palace Purple)