An invitation into the hidden gardens of Allentown Garden club will hold tour of eight lush sanctuaries on June 2 BY JENNIFER KOHLHEPP Staff Writer JEFF GRANIT staff The Allentown Garden Club will host a tour of backyard gardens in June. White irises launch and purple alliums burst like fireworks into the sky over a stout Japanese maple seemingly meditating on waves of prickly cactus. This living, colorful dance performs every spring and summer under the direction of Terry Brown, who keeps the garden at his Allentown home. However, this year the Allentown Garden Club will help him and other local gardeners bring their usually private aesthetic pleasantries to a more vast audience in the fifth annual Hidden Garden Tour. The Allentown Garden Club, which is open to the public, is a group of professional gardeners and agriculturists, as well as hobby gardeners, who share information, ideas, plants and flowers. The club offers seminars and brings in experts from various aspects of gardening to lecture and answer questions. The club's garden tour, which will take place from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. June 2, rain or shine, is the organization's major fundraiser. Proceeds from the event help fund the club's community beautification projects, scholarships and speaker programs. JEFF GRANIT staff A water bucket sign will denote which Allentown home gardens are part of the Allentown Garden Club's upcoming garden tour. To make gardening more accessible, the garden club decided to feature gardens in this year's tour that were created by average homeowners rather than those made by professionals, according to Kathy Fidler, spokeswoman for the event. "The best thing about it is that these are all real home gardens and not something out of a magazine," Fidler said, adding that professional gardens sometimes make the hobby seem daunting to those who might want to try it. Nestled behind his Church Street home, which dates back to 1945, Brown's garden began as a vegetable garden but has evolved over the past 20 years into a different kind of living lushness to keep the "two-legged, four-legged and even no-legged beasts" away, he said. Although Brown, who gardens as a hobby, still grows lettuce, spaghetti squash and peas amid his beds of flowers and plants, he no longer grows other edibles. Brown just completed a gateway into the backyard out of stained wood with trims of gold and burgundy, which he accented with Virginia creeper. In the gateway, a small Zen wind chime greets people as they walk through. A brick-lined walkway leads around a flower bed to an arbor where Wisteria creeps along a spot near a red barn structure that dates back to 1913. The middle section of Brown's backyard has a meandering path through beds of choral bells, hydrangeas, Russian sage, hostas, wild roses and day lilies, which all encase a circle of crocinas that look like a burning fire from the back porch in the summer, according to Brown. "I left it sort of maze-like," Brown said of his garden. "It looks like there is more because everything is planted in waves." He continued, "Different parts show off at different times of the year. There's always something coming and going." Found objects and a little ingenuity helped Brown create a seating area out of railroad ties near the rear of his property. Visitors can sit and ponder a bed of five different types of lavender and other beds kept squared off by branches tied together with twine in the form of small trellises for scaling pea plants. When asked what his favorite plant or flower is, Brown said, "Whatever is growing and whatever I don't have to do anything with once I finish all of the gardening work in the spring." He said he still has to water and weed, which takes about an hour twice a week. Garden club members like Brown and Lisa Strovinsky encourage people to try to learn how to garden using trial and error. "I knew nothing about gardening," Strovinsky said. Strovinsky, who moved into her home on Main Street in Allentown in 1994, helped found the borough's gardening club in 2000. When her family moved into their home, only trees adorned the property. Today she has bushes bursting with hydrangeas, a kousa dogwood, hostas and a cristomeria tree growing in the front yard. A gate leads into the backyard where Strovinsky has created a border garden with a curving stone path. She has carved a niche out behind the shed for shade plants. On the other side of the yard grow yellow and red irises, bleeding hearts, yellow euphorbias, maiden hair ferns, sweet woodruff and toad lilies. Strovinsky said gardens need vertical structures such as arbors or evergreens. She also said form and fragrance are important aspects of any garden. She has lavender growing next to the patio and lily of the valley growing beside one of the house's windows, which enables their sweet scents to waft into the house. In different focal points of the planted landscape, Strovinsky has placed large, grayish-white pieces of driftwood she scavenged the shores of Maine for. A gnome and a mushroom, which her children gave her for Mother's Day, a gargoyle and a laughing winged pig also add whimsy to the colorful display. This year, Strovinsky has had to learn to share her garden with her 7-year-old son, who has taken a shine to her hobby. Gardening has always been part of her family's traditions, she said. When Strovinsky's grandmother passed away, her mother took a couple of peonies from the yard and planted them, though she was unable to get the plants to bloom. A couple of years ago, Strovinsky took one of the peonies and planted it in her own yard. This year, the plant is bursting with flowers. "Gardening is one thing you can pass on as a family tradition," she said. "You can use it to keep the memory alive of someone who's no longer here." Strovinsky considers gardening a stress reducer and an activity that provides a sense of accomplishment. For her, it is a privilege to take care of living things. "I also enjoy seeing the enjoyment the garden gives other people," she said. Fidler, who has been gardening since she was a child, called it a peaceful act. "The rewards are visually beautiful," she said. Gardening for Brown provides a means to get out of the house. "Plus, the more I put in, the less mowing I have to do," he joked. Brown's garden will be on display during the tour. This year, instead of having visitors travel via car to various gardens throughout the area, the club decided to hold the tour within one square mile of downtown Allentown, thus making every garden on the tour easily accessible by foot. The tour will feature eight gardens including park-like gardens, patio gardens and even a rock garden. "The tour has something for everybody," Fidler said. Advance tickets for the club's tour can be purchased for $10 at Hoffman's Bakery, the Allentown Public Library, and Off the Wall Craft Gallery. Tickets may also be purchased the day of the event for $12 at Keris Tree Farm, located at 842 Route 524. Children's tickets are $5. For further information, visit www.allentowngardenclub.org or call Jennifer Elder Brady, club president, at (609) 581-0462.