Garden tours show us spring really is here

By C. W. Cameron

For the AJC

Faye Borthick says she’s enjoyed many garden tours over the years, and now it’s her turn to give back. Her Stone Mountain garden is open for this Sunday’s tour for members of the Georgia Native Plant Society. With two metro area garden tours this weekend, the spring garden tour season is officially launched.

Standing at the entrance to her property, Borthick can survey her entire domain. To the casual observer, it’s just a gently rolling landscape punctuated with a house in the middle, a vegetable garden to the side, a chicken coop on the ridge, a small pond down the slope. No showy flower beds; no lush containers complementing clipped hedges.

To Borthick, it’s a little universe that she carefully husbands, determined to be a good steward of every leaf, branch and handful of soil. As she walks the property, she shares the provenance of every plant and rock, many of which came from rescues organized by the Native Plant Society. Yes, Borthick rescues rocks as well as plants.

Borthick and her late husband, Walter, bought the property 16 years ago, and the lot came with typical suburban landscaping of non-native plants. They inherited some second growth pines and a few native hardwoods like tulip poplars.

Over the years, the big trees on the property have toppled, prey to ice storms, tornadoes, beetles and selective pruning. The trees haven’t left the property, though. Borthick has the trunks stacked up along the fencing, where they are slowly decomposing while creating habitat for a native plant and animal species. The branches have been chipped and stored to provide material for creating paths and enriching the soil.

The non-native landscaping has been replaced with Stone Mountain daisies and self-sown columbines along with a host of other native species. A small water course flows across the property. Bridges offer a way across the water, and mulched paths indicate the route of travel.

Small seating areas provide places to enjoy the sound of water and maybe a frog or two. Walking the paths provides a chance to look closely at special features like the slope planted with hepatica, anemones, bloodroot, trillium -- the Georgia woodland’s traditional harbingers of spring.

The low point of Borthick’s property drains the surrounding 8-acre watershed. Now a pond corrals some of the water.

The pond is a relatively new addition, created four years ago. Cattails grow along the pond edge, not planted by Borthick but brought in by the wind or maybe by the birds. “If the habitat is there, the native plants will find it unless something like privet crowds them out,” Borthick said. In addition to attracting plants, the pond has attracted its own population of bullfrogs.

Chickens are this year’s latest addition to the garden plan. John Herndon of Herndon’s Tree Removal and Landscape is Borthick’s partner in the process. He’s been her “tree guy” for the past 16 years, and now he’s built a large chicken house and fenced chicken yard. It’s not just the perimeter that’s fenced, but the large chicken yard is roofed with chicken wire, so her little charges are protected from predators.

Borthick has been gardening organically for years. Now she’s moving to the next step. “Biodynamic is where you need to go if you want to garden sustainably,” she said as she outlined the role of livestock in creating a sustainable garden.

While she’s not planning to add cows or pigs to the household, the chickens will do their part by hanging out in chicken tractors, a portable enclosure that will allow her to move them from garden area to garden area. “I’m in line for two pair of quail, some ducks and more chickens,” she said with a smile.

Borthick hopes visitors will leave her garden inspired to develop a native plant landscape. “This is the way to restore the biodiversity on which our life depends. Sustainable landscapes require healthy soil food webs that come from caring for the soil microbes, which feed the plants that nourish us and restore fertility to the earth."

Resources

Faye Borthick suggests three books for learning more about biodiversity:

“Bringing Nature Home” (Timber Press, $17.95)

“Teaming With Microbes: The Organic Gardener’s Guide to the Soil Food Web” (Timber Press, $24.95)

“Biodynamic Gardening for Health and Taste” (Steiner Books, $35)

Some metro area garden tours for April and May

Piedmont Gardeners' 17th annual garden tour

10 a.m.–4 p.m. April 17

Tickets: $10 in advance, $15 day of tour

Five gardens on tour in the Athens area

For more information: www.piedmontgardeners.org, 706-543-4684

Georgia Native Plant Society Members Tour

10 a.m.–6 p.m. April 18

Tickets: Tour is available for members only, membership information available at www.gnps.org.

Four gardens on tour: two in Stone Mountain and two in Marietta

For more information: www.gnps.org, 770-343-6000

Fayette County Master Gardeners Spring Garden Tour

10 a.m.–4 p.m. May 8

Tickets: $15

Five gardens on tour in Peachtree City and Fayetteville

For more information: 770-305-5153

Atlanta Botanical Garden Gardens for Connoisseurs Tour

10 a.m.–5 p.m. May 8 and 9

Tickets: $20 in advance and $30 on days of the tour

13 gardens on tour in Atlanta, Decatur and Sandy Springs

For more information: www.atlantabotanicalgarden.org, 404-876-5859

Cobb County Master Gardeners Garden Tour

10 a.m.–5 p.m. May 15

Tickets: $10 in advance; $12 day of tour

Plant sale and four gardens on tour in Cobb County

For more information: 770-528-4070

High Museum of Art Artful Garden Tour

10 a.m. – 5 p.m. May 15

Tickets: $20 in advance; $25 day of tour

Six gardens in Buckhead, Chastain and Sandy Springs

For more information: www.high.org/gardentour, 404-733-4521