If you haven’t already gotten your ticket yet, there’s to bask in all things gardening at the Garden City Festival at Sacred Heart.
Today is the last day of the festival. If you care about gardening enough to read a gardening column, you will love it.
Seriously, it’s so fun, and it’s been a long two years without the annual festival. To get a feel for all that will be available at the beautiful Sacred Heath Cultural Center, 1301 Greene St., check out the website SacredHeartGardenCityFestival.com.
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But to try to intrigue you off that couch today, let’s also talk about one of the fabulous private gardens on this year’s garden tour:
Will and Lauren Benson have opened their “Urban Garden” for this year’s tour. It is so cool. They’ve not only built raise vegetable beds, set bed lines and put in eatables and brushes and trees, they have also built a luxury coop for chickens as well a spacious pen for rabbits.
They may not have the acreage to put in fields of wheat and barley for homemade breads, although they do make their own, but the idea for the property is sustainability.
The Bensons have made use of their whole property in the effort. Areas receiving full sun are dedicated with vegetables and other plants that need the sun to thrive. There’s space for herbs and fruits, and even the shadier spots contribute. Check out the shade in back for the spot where they grow oyster mushrooms.
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They also made room for the native Yaupon holly, a native plant that the Bensons use to make tea. Will Benson in an earlier tour for some of the folks who will be manning the gardens to provide additional information, said that he dries the leaves in the oven, grinds it and uses it to make tea.
The Bensons moved into their home around 2014. The home, built in the 1930s, is surrounded by some of the classic landscaping plants and features fitting to the neighborhood. They’re kept those solid bones and just added the urban garden elements to create something that will inspire others.
Please consider scheduling in the following Saturday morning, May 7, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. to come to Pendleton King Park at 1600 Troupe St., for the annual Plant Sale and Swap.
First organized by a master gardener years ago – and put on hold for the past two years because of the pandemic – the sale is back for the first Saturday in May. Master gardeners contribute some of their most treasured plants from their own gardens for the sale, and there will be vendors with lovey selections of plants spread out in the park area near the Franke Pavilion.
Sandy Hodson is a staff reporter covering courts for The Augusta Press. Reach her at sandy@theaugustapress.com.
