There’s a party going in Westby, or at least there will be when the Westby Area Chamber of Commerce holds its annual garden party on Thursday, July 11.
This year’s theme is “Gardens, Rails Vining Trails” and will send garden lovers from the city to the country in search of scenic landscaping and then back to Davidson Park for food, music and fellowship.
This year’s garden party features a wide variety of hostas used to landscape difficult areas of any lawn. From 4:30-8 p.m. visitors are welcome to tour the garden locations where area green thumbs will reveal how perennials and annuals can be used to bring color to an otherwise lifeless landscape and reduce mowing time overall.
Partygoers can begin or end their colorful journey with a trip to Davidson Park in Westby for the weekly “Hamburgers in the Park” festivities, sponsored this week by the Westby Chamber of Commerce. Food will be served in the park from 5-7:30 p.m. and music will be provided by Westby Summer Big Band.
People interested in the garden walk can buy a $5 ticket at Davidson Park or at any of the featured locations. Each ticket purchase includes a map of garden locations highlighted in this year’s event.
Vernel Vesbach
S1028 Ninety Meter Drive
West of Westby, off Hwy. 14/61, turn right on Lovaas Ridge Road, go one mile, turn right on Ninety Meter Drive and follow road to the end.
The home of Vernel Vesbach will surely delight anyone and everyone who visits.
Vesbach lost the love of her life, Brian Nelson, last year in a tragic farming accident, but his love of gardening and amazing green thumb lives on in every unique flower garden on the property. She bought the property from her father, Walter Vesbach, in 1983 and since then has painstakingly restored the home; a project of love down to the addition of new windows and residing the house with logs.
The flowered border along the driveway and elsewhere on property were all grown at Deep Rooted Greenhouses. Being in the outdoors and growing foliage was a labor of love profession Nelson owned and operated Ski Hill Greenhouses a business Vesbach’s daughter, Tiffany Cade, took over after his untimely death and renamed Deep Rooted.
Cade plans to expand the greenhouse business to include perennial plants in 2014 and she will be at the Vesbach home with home grown organic tomatoes during the garden tour.
In the back of the Vesbach house there is a garden in memory of Vesbach’s father, Walter. Along with the flowers this garden exhibits a quack digger and two mail boxes, one bearing her father’s name and the other in the shape of a cow.
The patio is decorated with large potted plants in unique containers and antique styled wagons are parked in various locations on the grounds and filled with flowering baskets of flowers.
The barn was also original to the site and resided with medal when it was restored. The barn is home to Vesbach’s horses which have one of the most scenic ridge tops in the Westby area to roam the pastures freely in. Her dogs, Marty and Nixie, greet visitors to the property with a bark, which soon subsides as they go about their business.
On the front lawn near the machine shed is a large flower bed, which covers the area where the cistern used to be and throughout the property anything old and discarded by others has been converted in a flowering conversation piece.
The 2013 Westby Syttende Mai royalty will be serving rømmegrot at the Vesbach home, making this a sure stop on your garden party tour.
Birger Phyllis Eklov
405 Ramsland Street
The deck at the home of Birger and Phyllis Eklov has become a relaxing area to view their flowers and watch birds and squirrels while they enjoy a full meal or a morning cup of coffee.
Gardening has become a family tradition started by Birger and Phyllis and aided by their daughter Karri and son-in-law, David.
David says “God put green grass to enjoy until you find something more beautiful to add.”
The terrain next to the barn style “shed” provides the perfect place for a raised garden area where flowers are displayed in a wheelbarrow, chair and chamber pot. A cultivator, tricycle and lightning rod and ball languish nearby.
The Eklovs were business owners in the city for decades and pieces of their history with Texaco have since been converted into tastefully decorated lawn ornaments in the yard.
In 2012, the house next door to the Eklovs was used in a practice burn for the Westby-Christiana Fire Department and the property is now covered in green grass and a decorative garden.
The 2013 Westby Snowflake royalty will be serving lemonade at the Eklov residence.
When you leave the Eklov’s lovely garden first please take the friendship path to Deb Olson’s garden close by on Washington Street.
Deb Olson
110 Washington Street
TThe yard at Deb’s home is filled with collections that look like they were gleaned from the pages of a country living magazine.
Each setting (vignette) starts with a rusty relic, rescued and repurposed. Some items which were found in local shops such as a Grain Belt ice chest, milk cans, pails and chairs are lovingly planted with various kinds of flowers.
One item of special interest is a memory watering can with broken pieces of china attached.
As you walk down the side of the house to the back yard you will see an iron bed frame, rusty gate and the backs of a pair of theatre seats.
Olson said anything rusty catches her eye including her first treasure, a toy fire engine.
In the back of her garage is an interesting room designed with the man in mind.
Olson will have a Watkins representative at her home during the garden tour for anyone in need of age-old tried and true remedies and one of a kind flavorings.
If you leave Olson’s house from the backyard first feel free to follow the friendship path to the home of Birger and Phyllis Eklov on Ramsland Street.
Branches Winery
Gene and Therese Bergholz
E6796 Old Line Road
West of Westby off Hwy. 14/61, take Cut-A-Cross Road, or follow West Sate Street out Old Line Road for three miles. Located on the corner of Old Line Road and Cut-A-Cross Road.
Branches Winery is owned by Gene and Therese Bergholz and located in the town of Coon, just west of the city of Westby on Old Line Road. Garden walk visitors can tour the lush vineyard and learn about growing cold climate wine grapes that were developed to survive Wisconsin winters, where temperatures can dip to 25 degrees below freezing and the vines root system remains unharmed.
The Bergholz grow seven varieties of cold-hardy grapes, wine grapes, plus table grapes in the vineyard, which will produce more than 40 tons of fruit this year.
Visitors are invited to tour the winery and visit the tasting room to sample the winery boutique and sample its five original flavors of wine including: Coulee Crisp, made from La Crescent vine grapes, Celebration berry, a delightful cranberry wine; Flying Geese, made from Frontenac Gris grapes; Vine Dance, a German white wine; and Explorer, made from Marquette grapes.
Wine is also available for sale by the glass or bottle and a delectable selection of appetizers, featuring local artisan cheeses will be served. The winery features an outdoor patio and deck and an elegant banquet room for special events and business meetings.
Gene Bergholz said the winery is still a work in progress, but that it is slowly, but surely all coming together. On the west side of the building is a covered outdoor patio, with a large uncovered extension where customers can sit and relax while they enjoy their wine as a gentle summer breeze blows softly in. An outdoor wood-burning stove is under construction and will be encased by a large gazebo, where wood fired pizzas will be featured later this summer.
Branches is open Fridays and Saturdays 1-7 p.m., Sundays 1-6 p.m., May-November and by appointment for groups and private parties. It is located just off of Hwy 14/61 at Cut-A-Cross Road between Westby and Coon Valley.
Ken Ruth Rupp
Polly Rude Way
The train and tracks may have left Westby decades ago, but thanks to Ken and Ruth Rupp of Westby, a piece of the Milwaukee Railroad returned to the community in 2009.
The Rupps had an opportunity to buy the original Milwaukee Road Caboose that rode the rail between Sparta and Viroqua in the 1950s The caboose was moved from the Milwaukee area to Westby on November 13, 2009.
It was lifted by a large crane and set on its current foundation on Polly Rude Way, between Logan Mill Lodge (formerly Ben Logan’s Feed Mill) and the Old Times Assisted Living. Shrubs have been planted at both ends of the caboose and flowers purchased at local greenhouses each spring are placed around the caboose. A few perennials spontaneously arrived, when Connelly Law Office was thinning the flower garden in front of their business and offered Ruth some of the overflow of plants. The perennials were planted at one end of the caboose this summer.
The landscaping decision to have shrubs and flowers around the caboose was a difficult one for Ruth, as she is compulsive about accuracy in her historic preservation projects and said a railroad would never have shrubs and flowers along the tracks. A more important concern of the Rupps, was that neither one of them was blessed with the skills for planting and maintaining gardens.
“We knew something had to be done around the caboose to beautify what had been a very ugly steep bank of eroding dirt and debris left over from removing the old Cargill Grain Elevator. The residents of Old Times Assisted Living are often looking out the windows or sitting on the porch facing the caboose and we wanted to have something nice for the Old Times residents to view,” Ruth said.
So with some help from landscape professionals and friends, the beautification project moved forward in June, even though Ruth said history has shown that getting plants to grow in that location will be a challenge since the soil was the foundation of a grain elevator from 1905, until the elevator was torn down in recent years.
The landscaping around the caboose will continue to be a work in progress with plans in the works to convert the 20 x 40 foot shed to the south of the caboose into a replica of the original Milwaukee Road Train Depot. The depot will be used as a museum to display railroad memorabilia.
So despite continuous rains and flash flood downpours in June the Rupps hope to have the project well underway before the garden party on July 11.
The 2013 Vernon County Dairy Promotion Princess Riley Ingles will greet visitors at the Rupp’s caboose and provide them with information on the dairy industry and its important contribution to Vernon County.
Westby Area Historical Society
Thoreson House
101 Black River Avenue
The Westby Area Historical Society will be hosting its annual pie and ice cream social at the Thoreson House during the garden walk.
The Thoreson House was built in 1893 and purchased one century later by the Westby Area Historical Society in 1993. The Thoreson House has received some generous furniture donations over the past year which will be on display during the event.
Volunteers have pruned, trimmed and spruced up the property with foliage, including hostas, lily of the valley, ferns, hydrangeas and spirea. The rock formations were cleaned out and mulch is replaced as needed to add color.
Pie slices sold during the event is used for Thoreson House maintenance projects throughout the year.
Don’t forget to stop by the Westby Stabbur House Information Center next to the Thoreson House for other area points of interest in Westby and throughout the Coulee Region.
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