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Children are very welcome in our West Asheville gardens! As a matter of fact, one of our goals is to inspire and enable parents and kids to get involved in gardening, both in community endeavors and at home.
We ask that children be supervised in the gardens, for their own safety and with respect to the home owners. Please be especially aware of your children around ponds, garden art made of hard materials, walls and slopes.
For the day of the stroll, the following locations are providing restrooms:
Please leave your pooch at home. With respect to the garden owners, their own pets, as well as the visitors on the tour, everyone will be much more comfortable. Stop at the Westend Bakery to pick up some organic dog treats though and you won’t be coming home empty handed!
We’re happy and proud to be in West Asheville and it’s wonderful to see so many beautiful gardens! This is our first garden tour and we’re looking forward to future ones. We will post more information on this topic soon. Please be in touch with Carol Ali.
We recommend that you use the centralized parking that will be available near the featured neighborhoods at: West Asheville Baptist Church on Haywood Road, St. George’s Episcopal Church on School Rd., and at Malvern Hills Park.
Each cluster of gardens makes for a relatively easy stroll through the neighborhoods. Walking offers more opportunity to explore West Asheville and to see walk by sites that are not featured gardens on the tour. Bicycle riding is also highly encouraged.
The West Asheville Garden Stroll is a rare chance to intimately experience the great outdoors of our urban environment that so often goes unnoticed.
Most importantly, wear appropriate shoes. While all our gardens are in the city, some have slopes, pathway surfaces vary and others have water features which may cause the surrounding walkways to be slippery.
Watch the weather for the day of the stroll. Local folks know this, but if you’re coming here from out of town for the stroll, be sure to have an extra layer of clothes for easy adjustments to temperature changes.
Sunscreen is always a good idea and be sure to carry water or pack a small beverage cooler in your car.
Here in Asheville, it’s pretty much impossible to predict the weather. Often times, we get everything in the course of a single day. If it rains on the day of the stroll, we’re having it anyways! Bring an umbrella or raincoat and enjoy the lush gardens. More than likely, the rain will give way to sun anyways.
“Wamboldtopia encompasses our garden, studio and home. It is our sanctuary and playground, wide open for creative expression – a little Utopia if you will! It all started 10 years ago with a simple geometric herb garden and has grown ever since.”
Damaris Pierce and her husband Ricki, a.k.a. The Rock Pirate, combine their passions for gardening, masonry and sculpture in their magical and playful garden. Between the stone castle studio, dog cabin, water garden and elf tower, there are countless rock creations, garden sculptures and gnome homes. A metal dragon tumbles up the front stairs, fairy doors surprise in hidden spots and a massive stone and brick arch greets visitors. The brick circle in the back was finished by Ricki just in time for their wedding six years ago. Wamboldtopia is a living canvas and testament of a couple’s love for each other and for all that grows.
Event extras: Bill Pillmorewill play the guitar on our magic circle various times during the day. Artist Gary DeVore will be painting in the garden. Little neighbor Dylan will be offering refreshing lemonade. Children welcome with adult supervision.
Additional Photos from the day of the stroll.
The Gnomon is the garden that Christopher Mello has created on the corner of Westwood and Waynesville Avenue off Haywood Road behind the Rocket Club and the bio-diesel pump. A gnomon is the shadow caster of a sundial and the name is in memory of a fallen gardening friend, Randy Palmer. Rest in peace Randy.
The garden is five years old now and is basically a collection of all the red and black leaved plants that i can find. Also included are plants with unusual flower shapes and colors and fragrances. I am now incorporating many edibles in the mix, lettuces, cabbages, and kales are the main thrust of the winter garden. As the garden is adjacent to My art studio at 307 Waynesville Avenue, visitors will find my rusty metal and ceramic work abounding. Perhaps the strongest feature in the garden is the waterfall constructed of giant metal plates that were once the water tower for the Chesterfield Mill in the river arts district.
This is a purposefully dark and moody garden. Hopefully as beautiful to visitors as it is to me. It is an intentionally public space and visitors are invited to revisit the garden anytime. daylight only please. Always welcome are donations of blue bottle and “dead” shovels.
Event extras: Christopher’s artful creation will be available for sale
Additional photos from the day of the stroll.
Started in 2003 as a peaceful response to the current war in Iraq and heavy drug activity in the neighborhood, Burton Street Community Peace Gardens is a growing labor of love in the heart of the Burton Street Community. From its humble beginnings as an overgrown lot filled with discarded 40-ounce bottles, the Gardens have grown to include two vegetable/flower gardening sites, stage area, fire pit, cob pizza oven, greenhouse, and sculpture gardens.
With a focus on environmental and community responsibility, the garden design and sculpture park have been created using found/reused items (most from the immediate neighborhood). The Gardens are hydrated from direct rain, in addition to rainwater collected in the 550-gallon tank of a neighboring residence. The greenhouse frame was constructed using steel poles from a discarded McDonalds playground. Brick, block & concrete used to build the fire pit, garden beds, & cob oven are all sourced from residences or sidewalks that were demolished and headed for the landfill.
Of special note is the sculpture park that is the creative endeavor of artist and poet DeWayne Barton/B Love along with other local artists. The installations, like the gardens, are created with found/reused items and each tells a separate and compelling story of social and environmental justice.
Our vision is to be a sanctuary for positive action, which results in neighborhood food security, community cohesion, and a vibrant, sustainable local economy.
Event extras:
Additional photos from the day of the stroll.
We don’t have a name except ‘yard’, but if I gave it one, I would call it “Liberated’ because it used to be all surrounded by chain link fence and nasty sheds. We have worked for approx. 20 months on the garden, the photos show the before and after transformation. Our long term goal is privacy provided by plants because the house is on a corner lot. Two main features are a rock patio where red dirt used to be and a rock wall built entirely of ‘side of road pick up’ rocks. There are rain chains too, which a lot of people ask us about. They’re a great alternative to running spouts down nice wood features on the front porch.
My garden gives me a sense of accomplishment and makes me feel like gardening even more.
Event Extras: We’re opening up first floor of the house to strollers for walk-through tours, complete with a display of before and after pictures of garden and house. We’ll also answer any questions and offer informal talks about our experiences in creating ‘renovated’ house features, building rock back patio and yard, bricked front sidewalk, as well as raised vegetable and flower beds.
As “FarmGirl” (Lauri Newman), I have been gardening at the Sunny Point Café for more than 3 years. In 2007, I began designing the Sunny Point Cafe Garden to be a beautiful and inspiring space for the community, and provide fresh produce, herbs and flowers for the café. I began the installation in March 2008, and this is its first full year of “Garden to Table.”
Everything grown at the Sunny Point Café is grown naturally. I use local sources and heirloom seeds or varieties. I grow the majority of starts for the garden. Sunny Point’s owners are very dedicated to running their business in an environmentally responsible way and have been very supportive of the garden. As the garden manager, I hope that the Sunny Point Café Garden will serve as a model for other restaurants to invest in urban lots and local farmers by planting more urban food-producing gardens.
The garden would not be looking as great as it does without its many helpers. From the initial installation to the regular maintenance and the garden’s new additions, volunteer help has been a blessing and help make it all possible. For example: The raised wood beds are made from reclaimed wood donated by Ken and Kevin from their Rocket Club renovation, and all that wood was cut to spec by my dad. The co-owner, April Moon Harpers works weekly in the garden on top of her long hours working the Café. This year April and her mom, Belinda, (co-owner) have added a whole new layer of color, vertical trellises, bowling balls and pins, buckets of potatoes, and beans, beans, marvelous beans.
It can take a village to build a garden, and it is sooo much fun. I am absolutely addicted.
Event Extras: We are going to have an assortment of food & beverages that has come from the garden for visitors to try out. “Garden To Table” samples in the Garden. I will be at the garden on that day as well as my FarmGirl Intern-Kristen… the SunnyPoint owners will be there off and on as well. We will all be happy to give tours and talk to visitors.
Additional photo from the day of the stroll.
The garden, home, and studios of Annie and “Mr.Jeff” bring a smile to your face. Their small lot is packed with Re-Art and a diverse palate of plant life……with many native varieties to enjoy.
Mr. Jeff makes outdoor durable Art out of industrial discards and multiples that can be extracted from the waste stream, such as marbles, corks, golfballs, brick, roofing ,etc. Vermicomposting is a favorite addition to your visit there as Mr. Jeff has an active worm farm as well as a small nursery.
Event Extras: Throughout the day we will have Art and Plants for sale
12:00 pm or there abouts…..Vermicomposting….1/2 hour demo: A to Z of using red-wiggler worms to produce high quality vermi-compost in a back yard setting.
2:00 pm: Installing Alternative Garden Edging including, bottles, metal roofing, brick, stone, concrete and industrial surplus.
Additional Photos from the day of the stroll.
We¹ve been working on our garden for about ten years. Our goal has been to create a cool and quite outdoor rooms in which to relax and entertain friends.
There is no specific style of gardening, we¹ve just thrown it all together like a large floral arrangement. The front garden is fenced in for privacy and to make the garden feel part of the porch. The back gardens are edged with river rocks gathered over the years from our favorite swimming hole. We grow some herbs but never vegetables, we prefer to support several our local organic farms.
We keep our garden projects small and low maintenance so we can spend most of our summer days by a river.
Additional photos from the day of the stroll.
This wonderful first year garden, attached to a newly constructed solar home is a must see. With raised beds, pebble pathways, and blooming flowers, all in a private fenced in yard. Enjoy live music and tastes from the garden.
The FCG is an 18 family, 2500 square foot cooperatively run community garden in the Falconhurst area of West Asheville. 2009 is our second year. There are 2 tiers of membership: the weekly members work one day a week in the garden, the monthly members come to the monthly community workday. We share the harvest equitably.
The FCG is located on a sunny hill facing south, in what we call “The Back 40″ a large open green space, made up of a patchwork of privately owned land. It is part of one of our member’s back yard. Our garden used to be a lawn and we are still building our soil and fighting Bermuda grass. We currently grow 20 kinds of vegetables and herbs. We have 2 thriving beehives (the Love hive and the Peace hive). We collect rainwater in several cisterns for irrigation. In the future we want to expand the size of our garden, add a cob oven, and incorporate drip irrigation.
We try to involve the wider community in as much as possible, including monthly potlucks and a wonderful Harvest Festival. We are supported by membership dues and have also received support from the Bountiful Cities Project and the 4-H Club of Buncombe County.
Additional photo from the day of the stroll.
Our compound and garden came to be because we cut down the dead cherry tree, which brought down the fence, and because the warehouse for Cherry Tree Beads is on site.
This is only our second year gardening together.
Purpose of our gardens: to become more self sufficient, teach our children how to live in harmony with the earth, create a beautiful environment, our enjoyment, food, herbs, and because we love playing in the dirt!
Gardens include; Aquaponic systems (2), ponds(4), fruit trees, wild flowers, edible landscaping, shade garden, herbs- native/medicinal, art studio, and play houses. Almost everything we’ve created has been done using found and recycled materials.
“Aquaponics is the combination of aquaculture (fish farming) and hydroponics (soilless plant culture). In aquaponics, the nutrient-rich water that results from raising fish provides a source of natural fertilizer for the growing plants. As the plants consume the nutrients, they help to purify the water that the fish live in. A natural microbial process keeps both the fish and plants healthy and helps sustain an environment in which they both can thrive. Essentially, aquaponics is organic gardening, but without the dirt.”
Future plans include; tilapia for ponds, more rain barrels, solar power, learning to use the herbs, and turning the side lot into urban farm. Dream would be to have hens, goat, small green house, raised beds, bee hives, fruit trees, and more aquaculture systems.
We feel extremely blessed that the cutting of the cherry tree was the catalyst for our gardening project and for the friendship between our two families. Last year our tomatoes tasted like summer, and we had many communal meals from the frozen tomato sauce during the cold weather. We look forward to many more!
Event Extras: Display and sale of Cherry Tree Beads, chalk painting & tree house tours for kids, tours of the on-site artist studio, and a kid-run lemonade stand.
Additional photos from the day of the stroll.
Not being city folk, it was important for us to surround ourselves with natural beauty. This house had been condemned 5 years ago and the innards of the house got re-done but the outside needed lots of love.
Year one was all hardscape to replace the weeds, debris and overgrown trees. The backbone to the garden had to happen before the planting began. Because of the small space we were very selective with our plant choices.
Our original thoughts were for the majority of the plantings to be perennials and shrubs but as the garden progressed we realized the importance of growing our own food as well. We’ve added dwarf fruit trees, blueberries, strawberries, herbs and veggies throughout the garden space to make it edible as well as attractive.
We installed 700 gallons of rainwater collection last year with strategically placed rain barrels and expanded that to almost 900 gallons this year. A solar panel and pump was added to assist in watering our 200 sq. ft. raised bed area.
Projects that are in the works are a pergola that is a delightful summer sitting area now but plans are to screen it in for bug protection then replace the screen panels with clear corrugated panels for winter growing of lettuce and greens.
Other plans include an additional solar panel to power the waterfall for the fish pond, adding an additional raised bed for veggies, and building more cold frames (currently we have 4 frames) to increase our cold weather vegetable production.
Our garden feeds our body and our soul in addition to inspiring others to grow their own food.
Event extras: guided tours various times, talks about 4 season gardening, rainwater harvesting, solar pumps, small garden spaces
Additional photos from the day of the stroll.
Thanks to gardener Extraordinaire Tom Jordan and Asheville GreenWorks, landscaping at the West Asheville Branch Library includes a mix of deciduous trees along the street and eye-pleasing combinations of shrubs and perennials around the building. Plantings include rhododendrons and azaleas, rose of Sharon and St. John’s wort, pansies, violas, ferns, lemon balm, salvia, cone flower, soapwort, gooseneck loosestrife, and others.
Click map image for larger version
The Garden Stroll stretches across the greater West Asheville area.
All neighborhoods are easily accessible from Haywood Road.
A detailed map will be available on the day of the stroll at the
WEST ASHEVILLE LIBARY
Signs along Haywood Road will guide you to the individual gardens.
We look forward to your visit!
The LaZoom Tour Bus will run between the
West Asheville Garden clusters!
Thanks to our LaZoom bus sponsors:
West End Bakery
City Real Estate
Wholesale Glass and Mirror
Universal Joint
West Asheville Garden Stroll – PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ON Tuesday, August 11, 2009
FIRST ANNUAL WEST ASHEVILLE GARDEN STROLL
SPONSORED BY: West Asheville Business Association and Asheville GreenWorks
Will take place on September 12, 2009, from 11:00 AM to 4 PM RAIN OR SHINE
KICKOFF CEREMONY at West Asheville Branch Library, 942 Haywood Rd. at 10:30 AM
The Stroll is FREE
Additional information on the web at www.WestAshevilleGardens.com , or call
West Asheville Branch Library, 250-4750
West Asheville, NC – August 3, 2009 –
The popularity of urban gardening has been expanding recently and West Asheville reflects this abundantly and with a quirky edge. The First Annual West Asheville Garden Stroll, Saturday, Sept. 12, 2009, will spotlight the astonishing garden diversity thriving in this urban setting. The event runs from 10:30 AM – 4:00 PM, and kicks off at West Asheville Branch Library at 10:30 AM with a ceremony honoring the library’s longtime volunteer gardener Tom Jordan. Asheville GreenWorks Director Susan Roderick will present Jordan with an Environmental Excellence Award. NC Arboretum Horticultural Director Alison Arnold will speak on “The Resurgence of Urban Gardening: Bringing Community, Creativity, and Connection into Our Hearts, Homes, and Lives”. A special attraction of the Stroll will be Asheville’s zany comedy tour bus, the LaZOOM bus, which will be available to transport strollers between neighborhoods.
Home gardening, an essential element of sustainable living, has taken root throughout the community’s many neighborhoods. Approximately 15 gardens will be on view across five areas of Greater West Asheville: Vermont/Sulphur Springs, Falconhurst, Brucemont/Louisiana, Burton Street, and East-West Asheville. Each site offers a unique garden display that represents the multi-faceted nature of West Asheville. Gardens on the tour include community gardens, art gardens, business gardens, rock gardens, school gardens, and gardens with recycled and permaculture features.
West Asheville gardeners are keen to share the joy of gardening. The Stroll emphasizes sustainability in urban gardening, networking among neighbors, and inspiration for strollers. Strollers can learn from gardeners’ varied experiences through demos, talks, guided tours, question-and-answer sessions, and first-hand viewing. Strollers are also invited to participate in planting a new Haywood Road pocket garden.
Maps of the tour and information about the featured gardens will be available at West Asheville Branch Library on Sept. 12. All featured gardens are within a couple of blocks of Haywood Road in West Asheville. Centralized parking for Strollers will be available at Trinity United Methodist Church (587 Haywood Rd.), West Asheville Presbyterian Church, 690 Haywood Rd.), and West Asheville Baptist Church (926 Haywood Rd.)
The West Asheville Garden Stroll is a non-profit endeavor led by a group of passionate gardeners. It is FREE and open to the public. Volunteers are needed to help with the Stroll; volunteer opportunities are listed on the website, www.WestAshevilleGardens.com. For more information, call West Asheville Branch Library, 250-4750, or visit the website.
CONTACT:
Anne Higgins
Higgins Horticultural Services, LLC
828-713-8688
AnneHiggins@charter.net
Karen H. Loughmiller
West Asheville Branch Library
828-250-4750 FAX: 828-250-4751
karen.loughmiller@buncombecounty.org
