CROWN POINT | Chainsaw carvings, wind twirlers, stone bird houses, and fire rock candles are just a few of the many new exhibits that guests will find at the 12th annual Waterscape Weekend Garden and Pond Expo, scheduled from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. April 27 and 28 in the Industrial Arts Building at the Lake County Fairgrounds, 889 S. Court St.

Sponsored by the Illiana Garden and Pond Society, the expo aims to inspire visitors to take backyards and landscaping to the next level and mesmerize others with incredible displays showcased by water features, lighting and garden experts.

“This show is a real destination for outdoor enthusiasts from all over the Midwest,” said Illiana Garden Pond Society Expo Chairperson Kathy Bartley. “Visitors to our show learn how to turn their backyards into their own sanctuaries. They might just want to add a few beautiful plants or a small koi pond, or build a meandering stream, but all of their resources are here, right under one roof.”

Other new exhibits featured this year include garden inspired jewelry, glass and copper dragonflies, yard art from recycled materials and hand crafted patio benches.

Water gardeners and aquarium hobbyists are invited to participate in a federally-funded research survey for the IL/IN Sea Grant to develop a campaign to protect the Great Lakes of aquatic invasive species.

Vendors will also sell fish, equipment for the water gardeners, plants including aquatics, garden decor, ironworks, gourd decor, lighting and irrigation options, hot tubs, and anything related to gardens and outdoor living enhancements.

In addition to vendors, visitors can connect with many local nonprofit organizations that will be exhibiting, including garden clubs that will be advertising their upcoming garden walks and rescue groups that will hold fundraisers.

Lake County Master Gardeners will be on hand to answer gardening questions and give away seed packets daily to the first 500 visitors to the booth. Many educational seminars and workshops will be available.

Adult admission is $5, while children 14 and younger attend free. Parking is free.

More information is available at www.illianagardenpond.org, or call Bartley at (219) 789-6207.

PETERSBURG – If it’s spring, then it’s time for the annual Historic Garden Week.

Once a year, the owners of several of Petersburg’s private historic homes open their front doors and gardens for public tours. The 2013 Historic Garden Week – in its 80th year – is sponsored by the Garden Club of Virginia and the Petersburg Garden Club and will take place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesday, April 23.

Properties showcased on the Petersburg Historic Garden Week Tour span four centuries of American architecture, history and landscape design. This year’s theme, “Blooming Through the years,” features a variety of residences – from historic properties to stately brick homes to an architectural studio and gallery with sustainable elements. Enjoy admiring the interior furnishings, architecture, or take a stroll through the colorful gardens.

In addition, the Centre Hill Mansion Museum, a historic Federal style brick house, will be open. This home was visited by two of our country’s presidents, Abraham Lincoln and William H. Taft.

Featured on the Petersburg Garden Tour are:

– 2001 Woodland Ave., owned by Mr. and Mrs. Thomas. Located in Petersburg’s Walnut Hill District, this brick Williamsburg-style home built in 1954, was purchased by the current owners in 2012. They have completely revamped the property’s exterior. The walks and driveway were reconfigured and landscaped. The exterior of the home has been repainted in traditional Williamsburg colors. The backyard now holds Virginia flagstone, a stone fireplace and water feature. The interior of the home features dentil, crown and chair rail molding throughout, as well as plantation shutters, a large formal dinning room and a wood paneled library, and is finely and uniquely decorated. Open for the first time for Historic Garden Week.

– 1578 Westover Ave., owned by Mr. And Mrs. Wright. Visitors to this brick home will have the rare opportunity to see on display originals from The Petersburg Garden Club’s Lee Park Herbarium collection, including the famous watercolors by Bessie Niemeyer Marshall. The collection also includes pressed and dried specimens of Virginia wildflowers. This home is a perfect setting of showcasing the collection, with many nature inspired arrangements and elegant botanical art. Watercolors painted by Mrs.. Wright are featured throughout, as well as a collection of porcelain fruits and vegetables by Pamela Vieuxtemps Tidwell, This love of nature continues to the backyard retreat, containing a glorious English shad Garden.

– The Marie Bowen Garden, Fairfax, Arch Street and Arch Circle. While in Walnut Hill, walk inviting paths of the Marie Bowen Garden, filled with flowering shrubs and trees that are nestled in this neighborhood. The Raleigh Parish Garden Club named this garden in honor of Marie Bowen, who along with club members and neighbors, tamed this area by working over 1,000 hours to propagate and establish native plants.

– 131 Franklin St., owned by Conard A. Kruger and David F. Toth. Built in 1899, this clapboard Victorian-style home was originally used as the parsonage for the 3rd Street Baptist Church. In 2008, the house was purchased and completely remodeled. This included a large modern gourmet kitchen, with marble floors, a six-burner stove, a dishwasher built into the wall, floor to ceiling black cabinets and a granite-topped island. Design elements include inlaid hardwood floor patterns and multiple elaborate fireplaces. Another informal garden features flower beds throughout. This home historically marked by the city of Petersburg is open for the first time for Historic Garden Week.

– Centre Hill Mansion Museum, 1 Centre Hill Ave. As a Garden Club of Virginia restoration site, Centre Hill exemplifies the benefits received from the Historic Garden Week, notably in landscaping restoration. Centre Hill, steeped in its own history, was recently featured in Steven Speilberg’s movie “Lincoln.” This year, there will be a special anniversary display covering the Petersburg Garden Club’s long history of participation in Historic Garden Week, and its own restoration efforts. The Petersburg Garden Club’s Herbarium Committee will also have their publications and prints available.

– 109 Bank St., owned by Ann Adams and Terri Ammons. This historically marked building, built in the 1820s, was former headquarters for the first daily newspaper, The Petersburg Intelligencer. Until 1854 it was used as the press room and editorial office of notable newspaperman, John Syme. Various other commercial businesses have occupied it through the years. The current owners purchased the building in 2006 with intention of creating a model for the use of historic properties. The building is a showcase for preservation. It illustrates a new concept in restoration by intergrating urban living needs and historic preservation. This eclectic urban living quarters are both satisfying and inspiring. This home is historically marked by the City of Petersburg and is open for the first time for Historic Garden Week.

– 235 Market St., owned by Studio Ammons and Terri Ammons. Renovated in 2004, this facility features a lobby/gallery space, meeting rooms and a large open studio space. Sustainable design elements include the use of a waste oil furnace for heat, natural lighting, and vegetable gardens. A special display of the Studio’s work will be on site for viewing. Open for the first time for Historic Garden Week.

– 319 High St., The Taylor Goodwin Sanctuary Gardens owned by Zelma Taylor and Gordon Goodwin. Renovation of this garden began in 1993, the day after Petersburg was decimated by a large tornado. The organic garden is a haven for birds, bees, and butterflies and features plants with berries, pollen and blooms to attract a wide variety of fauna. The garden’s large amount of undergrowth continues to provides a natural habitat for ground-nesting birds. Expect to see woodland phlox, ferns, trillium, double-bloom bloodroot, Virginia bluebells, yellow primrose, quince and spring camellias to be in bloom. The owners bee hives will be open for demonstration on the lower lot in the afternoon.

Visitors will be greeted by hostess guides at the properties open. Tour houses will feature fresh flower arrangements created by Petersburg Garden Club members with emphasis on colorful seasonal flowers and plants native to the area.

Proceeds from Historic Garden Week ticket sales continue to support the Garden Club of Virginia to help restore the grounds of Petersburg’s Centre Hill Mansion Museum. Centre Hill Mansion Museum was recently featured in Spielberg’s movie, “Lincoln.”

The members of Cockade City Garden Club will be offering a luncheon (Cost: $12) Thursday, from 11:30 to 2 p.m., at Historic St. Paul’s Episcopal Church at 110 N. Union St.. The luncheon will include a fashion show by SHE CHESTER of Chester. Blooming geraniums in a variety of colors will be available for purchase at the lunch site. Geranium and luncheon sale proceeds will be donated to Historic Blandford Cemetery in Petersburg to help repair the tombstones and ironwork.

Historic garden tours have been held annually since 1929, except during a period during World War II when members of the Virginia Garden Club took time off to tend their Victory Gardens.

Pricing for the tour is $20 for advance tickets. Tickets the day of the tour will be $25 and can be purchased that day at any of the properties open. The tour will be held, rain or shine. For tour house descriptions and how to obtain tickets, go to www.Facebook.com/ and search for Historic Garden Week in Petersburg.

Funds from Historic Garden Week tours are used to restore gardens and grounds of Virginia’s most prominent historic figures, including those of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James and Doley Madison, Patrick Henry, George Mason, Robert E. Lee, and Woodrow Wilson. These and other fine properties are also open to the public.

Every spring, I get a zillion questions. An amazing number are about weed or pest controls, but almost as many focus on sourcing garden soil and compost.

It’s rare to find a home surrounded by beautiful loamy topsoil. It’s sadly common to discover that your new landscape has been prepped with an inch or two of decent topsoil layered over native clay (or sand).

Mature gardens may have decent soil, notably after a gardener has tended that soil for many years. Sadly again, it can take years to build up our acidic, heavy native soils. Even more sad, neglected soils rapidly lose their tilth and return to their natural stodgy state. Happily, the secret to repairing native soils is the same whether they are sandy or clay-based.

The best way to improve either kind of soil is to add compost annually. When a garden is new, you can count on buying in compost for at least a few years. It will take that long for most gardens to provide enough compostable material to supply the garden’s needs. Mature gardens can usually come close, but depending on the kind of gardening you are doing, you still may need to import

compost now and then.

When you are working with a new or long-neglected garden, you would be wise to bring in some good quality topsoil. My favorite way to convert a barren patch of nasty soil into a fruitful garden bed is to have a truckload dumped right where I want it. Rake it out, and presto, you’re ready to plant.

With Emu Topsoil closed, many gardeners are seeking new sources for good topsoil and compost. I really like both products made locally by Oly Mountain.

Oly Mountain Fish Compost recycles locally sourced fish waste, yard waste, and native hardwood logging waste. Certified organic and made in Belfair, Oly Mountain Fish Compost is aged two years. This nearly odorless compost provides a steady, slow release of nitrogen and other nutrients. I especially like that it contains no peat moss, since peat is really not sustainably harvested and makes a poor soil conditioner to boot.

Katie Bach, staff horticulturist for Oly Mountain, feels the same way and firmly states that none of the Oly Mountain products include peat.

After spending eight years at Seattle’s Cedar Grove facility, Katie is bringing a new level of professionalism to the already fine Oly Mountain product line. She also designs specialty mixes for local nurseries and landscaping needs, such as a Forest Mulch blend of organic compost from yard waste and bark which nurseries use for potting and container plantings, reducing the need for extra fertilizer.

She’s working on a potting soil mix for retail customers as well, though that’s still a project in development. The Oly Mountain Bio-Retention and Rain Garden Mix of coarse sand and compost was originally made for county projects, but is now available from several regional bulk dealers (see below).

So is the Oly Mountain 3 Way Lawn Mix, which combines their fish compost with loam and coarse sand. You will also find many retail outlets that sell the excellent Oly Mountain Garden Blend, which partners the fish compost with washed dairy manure, loam and sand. This is a very good combination for repairing and restoring native soils of any kind, and works well for both edibles and ornamentals.

Oly Mountain compost and soils are available in bags and in bulk at many retail outlets throughout Western Washington. For more information, call 206-940-8807 or visit olyfish.com/index.php/where-to-buy/ to find retail and bulk outlets near you.

Contact Ann Lovejoy at 8959 Battle Point Drive NE, Bainbridge Island, WA 98110.

If you are interested in gardening, you have a treat coming up April 20-21 in Discovery Gardens. The Central Florida Landscape and Gardening Fair is preparing a great lineup for you with educational seminars and activities, as well as garden-related vendors.

Starting at 10 a.m., April 20, Dr. Jamie Ellis will be talking about the plight of the honey bee. Well known for his beekeeper college, Ellis’ talk will be more general about the recent declines in honey bees, and other interesting bee facts. All speakers will be around for questions afterwards, so store up some questions for our experts.

Next on the agenda is Jonathan Squires, our local barefoot gardener, with a talk on no turf landscaping, a subject dear to the heart of those who hate to mow grass.

Robert Bowden, director of Harry P. Leu Gardens in Orlando, will be talking at 12:30 p.m. about setting the record straight on gardening myths. His wonderful photography and humor, as well as his gardening knowledge, have made him a favorite speaker for gardening audiences.

Following him at 2 p.m. will be Keri Leymaster, Orange County Extension agent and past Sea World horticulturist. She will tell us how to use those confusing irrigation controllers that are worse than TV controllers to program. Research at UF/IFAS has shown that people can save as much as 70 percent of their irrigation water if they use their controllers properly.

Meanwhile, if your in terests are more along the lines of cooking what you grow, Julie England, our own Family and Consumer Sciences Extension agent, will be teaching cooking with herbs in our kitchen. Find out what herbs grow well here and how you can use them in delicious, nutritious recipes. Taste testing will be included.

Vendors and other speakers will be available in the Discovery Gardens both days, and there will be children’s activities in the children’s gardens including the butterfly house. At 10:30 a.m., Saturday, and 1:30 p.m., Sunday, Bill Ferree of WattNext, Inc. will be talking about using solar power in the Horticulture Learning Center (HLC) building. A federal grant was used to outfit the HLC with solar panels that now provide the electricity for the building with the excess sold back to the utility.

Master Gardeners will be stationed in seven of the gardens from 11 a.m. to noon and 2 to 3 p.m. on both Saturday and Sunday to answer any horticulture questions about the tropical shade garden, camellia shade garden, nectar garden, palm walk, herb garden, cottage garden and butterfly house.

If you are interested in backyard fruit production, our own commercial fruit production agent, Gary England, will be in the fruit garden to answer questions from 2 to 3 p.m. on Saturday.

Steve Earls, our local square foot gardening guru, will be available at our square foot vegetable garden on Saturday at 12:05 p.m. and 1:40 p.m. on Sunday for demonstrations and questions.

On Sunday, our auditorium speakers start at 10 a.m. with Carl and Bernie Moro talking about gardening with worms. They are the owners of Our Vital Earth and have extensive knowledge of composting and gardening with worms.

At noon on Sunday the keynote speaker Tom MacCubbin will be talking about gardening challenges for Florida gardens. MacCubbin is famous in central Florida as a long-time UF/IFAS Extension agent, now emeritus, for his TV and radio gardening programs.

Teresa Watkins, host of “In Your Yard” radio program, will follow him at 1:30 p.m. to talk about how to implement Florida friendly landscaping in your community. This is an introduction to the course used for state certification of HOA and property managers.

In the gardens on Sunday at 10 and 11 a.m., Maryann Krisovitch from the Lake County Water Authority will talk about using rain water at the cistern and rain barrels that capture water from our HLC building.

If you are interested in purchasing and painting your own rain barrel, Christina Miller from the city of Mount Dora will be in the gardens from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday with rain barrels and paint so you can make your own to take home.

Wildflowers are the topic for Wendy Poag, Lake County Parks and Trails, Sunday at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. starting in the Wetlands pavilion. She will take you through the gardens to see the various wildflower plantings and answer questions about how you can start your own.

If you are interested in more detailed information on wildflowers and native plants, we have a program called “Expanding Your Plant Palette” on April 24.

As you can see, we have a lot of great speakers and activities for you on April 20-21 in the Discovery Gardens. I hope you will join us and discover your own gardening talents at the second annual Central Florida Landscape and Garden Fair.

Visit the Discovery Gardens and our plant clinic with your plant problems and questions from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., weekdays, at the Ag Center, 1951 Woodlea Road, Tavares.