Poway gardens on display April 6

By Emily Sorensen

The 2013 San Diego Horticultural Society’s Spring Garden Tour, being held 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. Saturday, April 6, will feature six gardens in Poway on display for your viewing, as well as garden-related vendors, artists and live music.

This year, two of the gardens on the tour are San Diego Home/Garden Lifestyles “Gardens of the Year” winners. Dennis and Pamela Mudd, whose native plant garden won in 2011, and Bo and Elizabeth Matthys, who won Garden of the Year in 2012 for their garden of succulents and drought-tolerant shrubs, are both featured on the tour, alongside four other gardens.

Other Powegian gardeners who have opened their elaborate landscapes for the tour are Paul and Jo Casterline, which includes Californian and Australian native plants and a mediation garden, Lyle (Chip) and Helen Arnold, who combine a botanical garden and nature preserve, including rare palms and cycads, and Bill and Ann Dahnke, whose hilltop garden features drought-tolerant plants and a small grove.

The final garden is that of Sunshine Care, the Poway assisted living home, which has numerous organic fields and greenhouses, where it grows food and flowers for therapy and food-bank partnership programs.

There will be local artists at all the gardens, either showcasing or making art, and the owners and other Horticultural Society members will be on-site to answer questions. Musicians will also be set up and performing in some of the garden.

Check-in for the tour is at Lake Poway Park, where a marketplace will be set up, featuring more than a dozen vendors selling local art, jewelry, garden art, pottery, birdhouses and other garden-related merchandise.

The garden tour is self-guided, and carpooling is recommended due to limited parking at some homes. Those who choose to carpool will be rewarded with a free guest pass to a San Diego Horticultural Society meeting.

Tickets in advance are $20 for members of the SDHS and the Lake Hodges Native Plant Club, and $25 for non-members. All tickets will be $25 day of event. Tickets also include discounts for lunch at Hamburger Factory and wine tasting at the Bernardo Winery. Maps and directions to gardens will be provided at check-in.

For tickets and more information, contact tours@sdhortsoc.org, or visit www.sdhortsoc.org.