Art in the garden
Art in the garden
| CAPTION: Jane Nordberg/Daily Mining Gazette Christine Williams tends to the bee balm in her Houghton garden Tuesday. The plant attracts hummingbirds and butterflies to her front garden, built on a 30 percent incline. |
By JANE NORDBERG, DMG Writer
HANCOCK — There will be painting in the perennials, beading in the berries and vocalizing in the vinca Saturday as the Copper Country Community Arts Center sponsors the 9th Annual Art in the Garden Tour.
This year’s tour features local artists and musicians among eight gardens in the City of Houghton and Stanton Township, with performers and gardeners each showcasing their particular talents.
“We know that there are other garden tours out there, but we wanted to give the community an opportunity to meet local artists, see them paint or draw, and get some insight into the creative process,” said Community Arts Center director Cynthia Cote.
The self-guided tour runs from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday, with tickets costing $15 each. All proceeds benefit the arts center.
While eight gardens seems like a lot to pack in, Cote said the gardens were chosen for their proximity to each other as well as their features and are as different as the gardeners themselves.
Judy Sharrar’s country garden, for instance, features inspirational sayings and garden gnomes tucked under stands of mature birches, with a nearby collection of roses belying the property’s former use as a stamp mill for the Adventure Mine.
Michael and Cathy Benda spent years clearing the heavily wooded acreage on their property to make way for a vegetable and flower garden. Turning lemons into lemonade, the Bendas used a large hill of 70-year-old decomposed sawdust from the property’s former sawmill days as a ground cover, which helps to maintain moisture.
Featured artists include musicians Mike Irish and Melissa Davis, as well as painters Clyde Mikkola and Jennifer Slack and stained glass artist Peg McNinch, who pulls double duty as both gardener and artist for this year’s event.
The creative aspects of gardening and other media are not mutually exclusive, Cote said.
“There’s certainly an art to gardening in the Copper Country, thanks to our short growing season,” she said. “Some of those gardeners don’t think of themselves as artists, they’re gardeners first, but they just happen to make magic happen.”
The ever-evolving nature of gardening allows visitors to return to sites they have seen before, but which now contain new plants and beds.
“There’s always something new in the garden tour as people develop their sites and introduce new plants,” Cote said. Tickets are available at the Community Arts Center from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. through Friday, and starting at noon on Saturday. Limited tickets will be available at the garden sites.
For those looking for a more intense, informational experience, Pete Nissila of Nissila’s Greenhouse Florist & Nursery in Ripley will act as expert guide Saturday during a bus tour to the eight gardens, complete with a gourmet box lunch.
Seating is limited for that tour, which Cote said was an experience not to be missed for die-hard gardening fans.
“People who buy a ticket for the ultimate tour will spend the day with Pete, picking the brain of an expert,” she said. Tickets for the bus tour are $60, available at the Community Arts Center.
With most of the planning completed for this year’s Art in the Garden, Cote said the Center is already planning for next year’s 10th annual.
The hope, she said, is to tie in the tours with the “Key Ingredients: America by Food,” Smithsonian Institute exhibit to be held in Calumet.
“We’re looking at including some orchards and berry farms, and we’re planning to do something really big,” she said.
Jane Nordberg can be reached at jnordberg@mininggazette.com
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