I’m a stay-at-home Mom in Wilton, New Hampshire in my mid-fifties.  Like many women my age, I’ve had multiple careers over the years.  I’ve been an elementary school teacher, a college administrator, and a senior technical writer at a major computer corporation.

Since my son was born thirteen years ago, I’ve focused on his upbringing, homemaking, as well as volunteering at schools and in the community,  taking the occasional part-time job, and dealing with the personal challenges that life inevitably presents.  One of my favorite volunteer jobs was designing, planting, and maintaining flower boxes in downtown Wilton through the Wilton Main Street Association, which I did for five years.  I learned so much about plants, both annuals and perennials, pouring over books I bought on container gardening.  Through trial, and much error, I learned what worked and what didn’t.  Who would have thought that such an innocent looking plant like a calibroacha could have such ruthless roots, choking out other plants!  Planning the boxes was more exciting than Christmas for me; maintaining them through the dog days of summer, however, was another story.

My greenhouse and gardenAt home, I have a 300 square foot organic vegetable and flower garden.  I have six raised beds, which are so much easier to plant and maintain than the 100 square foot in-ground garden I used to have.  I have to confess that as the years go on, I’m growing more flowers than vegetables.  I really need to get going on a dedicated flower garden – I have the plans, just need the time.  When I go into my garden and my small greenhouse, it’s my refuge from whatever calamity has come my way.  Just the sight of my flowers, especially Zowie Zinnias, brightens my day.

I started attending community garden tours about four years ago.  I think the first was in Wilton, organized by the Wilton Main Street Association to raise funds.  Driving around Wilton, discovering areas I hadn’t seen before, reminded me of my days as Yard Sale Queen when my son was first born.  With yard sales, it was the thrill of the hunt for great bargains; with the garden tours, it’s seeing what people have done to beautify their environment with whatever time and resources they have.

And to be truly candid, like a lot of people, I’m curious about how others live.  I enjoy seeing other people’s homes and property, and hearing what they have done to create or improve both.  I never cease to be impressed with the amount of time, effort, and ingenuity that home gardeners put into their creations.  As varied as these gardens are, the one thing they all have in common is that the work is never done; there’s always a project to finish or a new project on the horizon.

I will admit that as much as I know about plants, I am woefully ignorant about the actual names of many plants.  Garden tours help me to learn those names as well as get ideas of plants that might do well on my own property and how to combine them in exciting visual displays.

Last summer, I wanted to find out about garden tours in other communities and was very frustrated with not finding the information on the internet.  So that’s when I thought of creating this website.  I want it to be an online kiosk for community garden tour information as well as for other garden events.  I could not have done this website without the considerable help of my husband who has spent countless hours programming this site and ironing out the inevitable glitches.  He’s the webmaster that makes this site so awesome!  Thank you with lots of love.