Every year flowers bloom marking the return of spring, and for the Northwest Louisiana Master Gardeners that means the return of their annual fund-raiser, Le Tour des Jardins. This year’s spring garden tour will take guests through seven beautiful gardens throughout Shreveport. Tour hours will be 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on May 6 and 1-5 p.m. on May 7.
The Master Gardeners is a non-profit organization serving the community since 1998. They are a division of the LSU Ag Center and strive to educate the public about gardening and engage the community in horticultural pursuits.
After a number of successful fundraisers, the Master Gardeners decided in 2010 to pull together a community grant program with the excess money that was accumulated. This year alone, they’ve awarded grants totaling over $17,000. One grant recipient, the Martin Luther King Center Garden, is one of seven gardens featured on the tour.
With so many amazing gardens this year, it is hard for Master Gardener spokesperson Michele Wiener to choose her favorite. She says if she had to choose only one, the MLK Health Center Garden would be her choice. Director Jennifer Donner has overseen the installation of the garden there and grows vegetables to share with clients of the center.
“She [Donner] has created this oasis,” Wiener said. “They are a lowincome center, but in the back she has created this garden with a pavilion and vegetables. It is just amazing. That’s probably my favorite because it’s so useful and it’s beautiful.”
Often when the Master Gardeners give a grant to an organization, it leads to that organization helping another. Wiener calls it a full circle process.
“As we give to this one, then they give to that one,” Wiener said. “I just find it fascinating.”
The MLK Health Center has paired with non-profit organization Shreveport Green by donating the vegetables grown in the garden for cooking demonstrations. They have also enlisted the help of non-profit organization Holy Angels by asking their residents to paint the fences in their garden.
Another prominent garden featured on the tour this year is owned by the founder of the Master Gardeners, Dr. Joe White. In 1999, Dr. White started the very first spring garden tour. Now 18 years later, members of the community will have a chance to visit his test garden where citrus and muscadine vines grow.
Le Tour des Jardins is a self-guided garden tour that can begin at any of the seven gardens. The Master Gardeners will provide a map that shows the best route from the garden you choose as your starting point. Tickets can be purchased in advance for $10 at any Citizens National Bank, or by calling the Master Gardener office at 698-0010.
You can also purchase tickets at any of the seven gardens on the days of the tour for $15.
This year’s spring garden tour includes:
Martin Luther King Health Center Garden: This garden, located in Highland, features a sunrise gate hand-painted by Holy Angels artists and opens to a patio with a covered pergola. It includes an herb garden, small greenhouse and an ancient Bois d’Arc tree that produces horse apples. Outside the back fence is a new garden filled with citrus, roses, Echinacea and verbena surrounded by a white picket fence.
Charles and Nita Acklen’s Garden:
Located in historic Highland at the corner of Fairfield Avenue and Robinson Place, this estate was built in 1910. It features Tiffany stained-glass windows, large, old-growth azaleas and a daylily collection. The raised-bed rose garden with statuary is attended by the homeowners, who have lovingly worked these gardens for 20 years.
Jeff Knighton and Josh Robinson’s Garden: Jeff and Josh have transformed a former rose garden into a Spring Lake oasis in the two years they have lived here. Enter the driveway past two huge aluminum water troughs filled with elephant ears and brightly colored trailing annuals. Through the gate is a beautiful pool surrounded by banana plants, Angel Trumpet, Sago palm, cannas, hibiscus and much more.
Jimmy and Maxine Isgitt’s Garden:
This Southport Country garden opens with blue phlox, agapanthus and Mexican petunias. Through the gate is a shaded bed of clivia, begonias and banana palm with a birdbath. Wandering around are three hens, four “Banty” roosters and a puppy. The back acreage contains a large garden where vegetables grow in the summer.
Les and Karen Picard’s Garden: The front yard’s curving beds filled with globe amaranth, pansies, dwarf Spiraea, Sweet Olive and agapanthus welcome you to this garden in Provenance by garden professionals Hoogland’s Landscape, LLC, designer Mike Hoogland. Inside is a brick-walled pool with three waterfalls surrounded by Teddy Bear magnolia and much more.
Dr. Joe and Barbara White’s Garden: The Whites’ Ellerbe Road area garden has been a test garden for citrus, muscadine vines, camellias and roses for over 40 years. Joe has 12 varieties of muscadines and two bunch grape plus eight fig trees. Their view includes 10 fenced acres behind their cultivated property where wildlife abounds.
Dr. Barzanna White’s Garden:
Dr. White lives right next door to her parents and has a pretty front yard with pink perennial hibiscus, yaupon and a birdbath. There are two bronze statues in the garden, water features, a lovely patio with umbrellas pots of annuals and “fairy boxes” built by her father filled with tiny figurines, gnomes and miniature plant scenes.
– Jessica Carr Photos special to CityLife
