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.

Lambton joined with two Los Angeles-based designers to come up with what they feel are the newest, most attractive and safest lighting options, but lets compare their choices to what Wakefield and Dargan have been doing for years.

First, Lambton, Jeff Andrews and Brian Patrick Flynn say that companies are now offering home owners the ability to duplicate their interior lighting fixtures for use outdoors, like chandeliers.

Atlanta’s Wakefield and Dargan Landscape Architects move more towards creating an ambiance outdoors that mimics nature, and which does not create undue stress on the habitats of wildlife, pets and plants in and around the home landscape. So don’t look for them to hang a chandelier.

What Chris Wakefield of The Outdoor Lights.com has done, however, is create his own design in a patio table umbrella, which can provide a unique and soft lighting option at the press of a button. The umbrella lights, which project enough small pinpoints of light to provide guests with needed illumination, are also subtle enough not to distract from conversation. And the lights in them are flattering, rather than garish.

And whereas a chandelier might prove a cumbersome and awkward lighting object to quickly remove during threats of inclement weather, the lights wired and created by Wakefield can be left outdoors, even in winter. However, dismantling the umbrella mentioned is as easy as unhooking one small connection.

Where Flynn and Dargan and Wakefield agree is in the move toward creating ones own lighting fixture for hanging outdoors. Dargan seeks to use items that either have a personal sentimental value to her clients or which fit into the overall theme of the landscape being created. She’s fond of rustic and natural-looking lighting fixtures that blend in unobtrusively with the landscape.

LA designer Jeff Andrews says he favors vintage lights and likes to put them in trees, hiding the wiring in the tree. Chris Wakefield is a pro when it comes to hiring wiring. One recent guest at a home garden tour in Cashiers actually thought Wakefield’s lighting fixture in that landscape had to be solar powered, as it was impossible to tell where the wires were, according to Hugh Dargan of Dargan Landscape Architects.

Lambton uses faux stone blocks which contain LED lights when he wants to illuminate a garden or landscape area without flood lights or porch lights. Wakefield has gone with glass sphere lights, instead, which provide his customers with two perks instead of just one.

The spheres are made of sturdy glass and decorated in colorful designs and available in different sizes. In the daytime they appear as decorative lawn, garden and landscape accessories, which then double at nighttime as a unique and soft lighting source. And they conveniently plug into outdoor electrical outlets, and are weather-proof. Some can even be submerged into ponds and pools.

Year-round lighting is the ultimate goal, which Chris Wakefield and his employees at The Outdoor Lights.com seem to have mastered. And that’s why Mary Palmer and Hugh Dargan choose only Wakefield’s company when they are designing landscapes for their high-end clients. They need the assurance that everything will be done right and to perfection.

The Dargans insist on making sure that their clients’ lights always work, that wiring is never seen, and that when it comes to lighting up an outdoor landscape spring, summer, winter or fall, that their clients aren’t having to try and take lights in or out of their landscape in time for guests. And Wakefield’s service plan makes sure that clients never even have to change their own outdoor light bulbs too.

Flynn, on the other hand, says that “The only type of lighting I’m worry-free about for the outdoors is festival-style string lights.” And isn’t that a shame, when he could have The Outdoor Lights company ensure a totally worry-free lighting experience?

© Radell Smith

A lot of folks have home gardens. I, myself, plant tomatoes, peppers, green beans, and all sorts of herbs with a varying degree of success.

But, Sarah Hermes of Hermes Landscaping in Lenexa takes it several steps farther. She specializes in what she calls “edible gardens.”

“The first project my dad assigned me was to redesign our office’s landscape,” she said. “He thought it would be fun to have some edible plants incorporated. I decided to just go all out, so I created a completely edible landscape.”

Hermes is the Marketing Manager for her family business, and the granddaughter of the company’s founder, John T. Hermes, who built the Lenexa headquarters in 1969.

Some of the original elements, like a creek and a bridge are gone, but an edible garden, filled with natural delights, like purple Echinacea and persimmon and espalier pear trees, is growing up with a new generation of landscaping elements.

Hermes said she visited the Heartland Harvest garden at Powell Gardens for inspiration and education about how to design the Hermes’ garden, and says the landscape is admittedly a test, trial, and risk.

The most challenging part of building an edible garden, Hermes said, is choosing plants that are productive as well as visually appealing. Additionally, picking plants with a seasonal interest is difficult because during the winter, productive plants generally go dormant and are no longer aesthetically pleasing.

The edible garden at the Hermes main office is not only a way to revive a single landscape, but it literally feeds into a larger trend of edible gardening, and the whole movement toward sustainability.

“As a society, we invest a lot of land, water and resources into cultivating beautiful landscapes. To find ways to make these landscapes productive will not only have a huge impact on our food system, but I think it also provides an avenue for people to connect with their landscape in a more meaningful way,” Hermes said. “It is a fulfilling experience to cultivate your own food. It’s empowering, and I believe it will be the way of the future.”

Clearly, not everyone is up for their own edible garden, but if you are, Sarah Hermes is the woman for you. Armed with more than 30 varieties of trees, shrubs and perennials in her own garden-all with a medicinal or edible benefit, Sarah Hermes is like a much more diverse Johnny Appleseed.

Check it out for yourself, and you might find that you can no longer do without the Texas Scarlet Quince, Contorted Filberts, or Pawpaws. Don’t worry if that happens. Hermes can easily, and deliciously, hook you up.

Dave Eckert is the producer and host of “Culinary Travels With Dave Eckert,” which aired on PBS-TV and Wealth TV for 12 seasons, or nearly 300 half-hour episodes produced on six continents. Eckert is also an avid wine collector and aficionado, having amassed a personal wine cellar of some 2,000 bottles.