Garden tours slated Saturday
Garden tours slated Saturday
| Linda Andriacchi just recently added this arch and fence to her garden in Ishpeming township. She is getting ready for the Marquette Beautification and Restoration Committee's annual Garden Tour to be held Saturday. (Journal photo by Miriam Moeller) |
By MIRIAM MOELLER Journal Staff Writer
MARQUETTE — Luscious flower beds, a gurgling waterfall, ponds filled with huge koi fish, a rose garden and a pergola covered in concord grapes — sounds like paradise?
It’s a paradise owned by Linda and Dominic Andriacchi, who will open up their garden to the public for the Marquette Beautification and Restoration Committee’s 13th annual garden tour fund-raiser. Eight gardens in Marquette, Negaunee, Ishpeming and Clarksburg can be admired from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Saturday.
“Some of them may stand out more, but they are all exceptional,” tour Chairwoman Lynette Schneider said. “These people really go all out to allow for everybody to be able to see their gardens.”
Linda Andriacchi loves gardening so much she even got certified as an advanced master gardener. She and her husband have been landscaping the property around their house since 1992, planting perennials, annuals, vegetables, apple trees and other plants that Andriacchi loves to collect.
“This year I am trying pumpkins,” she said, which she planted in old whiskey barrels.
Every day after work, Andriacchi tends to her paradise until darkness forces her back inside of the house.
“You can lose yourself in your garden and solve all your problems in your garden,” she said.
Her three ponds hold white and orange koi fish as big as 30 inches long that she transfers to a pond in her basement – build by her husband — during the winter months.
Andriacchi said she wants other people to get inspiration from her creations — just like she is inspired by other people’s gardens.
“Every time I go somewhere, I have my digital camera to take pictures,” she said.
Also featured in the garden tour is Gloria and David Pansier’s garden, located on Badger Creek in Marquette Township. When the couple moved to Woodridge Avenue in 1986, they cleaned out the creek and gradually landscaped their two-city-lot garden, complete with a bridge, pond and a multitude of hostas.
“I love gardening.” she said. “My husband is a lot of help. He is very creative with a lot of ideas.”
Pansier said she was part of the garden tour years ago and decided to show her garden one more time before she gets too old to maintain it. She said that she also wanted to help the Marquette Beautification and Restoration Committee raise money for their projects.
“It’s one of the reasons why I do it,” she said. “Because the money goes for a good cause.”
Pansier likes to show her collection of unusual plants such as her leopard plant, astilbes and other variegated plants.
“It’s basically a shade garden,” she said. “I have a lot of hostas, although the deer have been after (them).”
The couple has also created a short bike path on the edge of their property that connects Bancroft and Woodridge avenues. She said they built it for the elderly people from the nearby Tourville apartments who like to walk past their yard.
“A lot of older people like to walk here,” she said. “The gardens remind them of when they were gardening.”
The tour also includes Russ and Glenda Mock’s garden in Clarksburg, near the small community of Diorite. There, participants will get a brief lesson on Diorite’s history.
“When you go to other people’s gardens you see things and you get inspiration to improving your own garden,” Schneider said.
The garden tour is the Beautification Committee’s biggest fund-raiser, Schneider said, and will help with Marquette’s spring clean-up, petunia planting and the restoration of the Father Marquette statue on Front Street.
“The money from the garden tour really just helps the community in the end,” she said.
Tickets cost $10, which includes refreshments and raffle prizes at the Marquette Commons building, and are available at flower shops in Marquette and Harvey, the Old Bank Building in Negaunee, the Landmark Inn in Marquette and at all garden sites the day of the tour.
For more information, call Schneider at 228-1979.
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