Annual tour gives all-access pass to 15 private gardens

Raindrops bounced across her driveway Tuesday morning as Liv Sallows grabbed an umbrella from her trunk and started walking toward her backyard.

A little rain wasn’t going to stop her.

“We’re wash-and-wear,” she joked.

Besides, there was work to be done in the garden.

Make that, gardens.

Sallows has multiple gardens on the Bestwick Avenue property she shares with husband David. The plots are huge by any standard, covering nearly every square metre of the landscape and holding so many flourishing species of plants, grasses and ornamental trees that it would be a challenge to try to count them.

“You see the Shasta daisies over there?” asked Sallows, pointing to a thicket of white flowers as wide and tall as a kitchen table. “I started 25 years ago with one packet of seeds in one corner of a garden.”

On Sunday, Sallows will be one of 15 homeowners to open their yards for the seventh annual Summer Garden and Pond Tour, a fundraiser organized by Lyons Landscaping in benefit of the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation.

For $15, participants not only gain access to all 15 properties, but something better: the wisdom and experience of expert gardeners like Sallows.

“This is my passion,” said Sallows, who spends anywhere from one to six hours a day tending to her gardens.

That passion shows. Every corner of her property is a floral masterpiece. Wispy grasses, long-stem flowers, blossoming trees and vibrant succulents are everywhere — spilling from shaded or sun-drenched tiered beds at the front, sides and rear of the property.

Delphiniums, dahlias, angel trumpets, and begonias — you name it, she’s got it.

No only that, she’s happy to share all her secrets for success.

“It’s a passion with people who garden and are really keen on it that we need to go out and see what other people do, because they are all so different,” said Sallows.

“You glean ideas and information and knowledge from seeing how other people do things. It’s like peoples’ homes; we each decorate in our different styles . . . and it’s the same with gardens.”

Tickets to Sunday’s tour are available at Lyons Garden Centre, Kamloops Florist Ltd. and Legends Used Books. Proceeds go toward the Sept. 30 CIBC Run for the Cure, a fundraiser for the breast cancer foundation.