Next Saturday is the Champaign County Master Gardener’s annual Garden Walk. This year’s event features six private gardens and two public gardens, all teeming with spectacular plants and interesting garden design concepts so you can take home a wealth of inspiration for your own garden space.
Every year, the Garden Walk attracts several thousand people from the Champaign-Urbana area and afar. This event has become known for the unique gardens it features, offering an inside look at these landscapes and the people who created them. Participants can peruse gardens and talk with homeowners or Master Gardeners to learn more about the plants, the people and the plans that created these sensational spaces.
The six private gardens featured this year offer another great lineup of interesting and inspiring designs, with each garden quite different from the rest. This year’s event is themed “Designing Our Gardens” and focuses on the intentional (and sometimes unintentional) design concepts that created the amazing gardens on the walk.
Visitors will experience a wide range of garden plants suited to our area that are framed by interesting hardscaping, water features and functional designs, such as an outdoor kitchen. Beautiful blooms abound in pollinator gardens as well as in spectacular container plantings. Observe native plants in their element or fruit trees and other tasty treats in pots that are carefully integrated into hardscaping and gardens. From flower cutting gardens to highly productive vegetable gardens, visitors will see it all.
Many of the landscapes on this year’s walk included intentional and functional design elements intended to create attainable gardens for busy family lives or simply to lower maintenance time. From strategically placed irrigation designs to innovative vegetable growing spaces, these gardens have concepts we all can benefit from. Learn from the gardeners who designed it all as they share the many years of experimentation used to create their own masterpieces. Every garden has its own unique design story, and these homeowners can convey the lessons learned, as well as the successes of their gardening adventures.
Public gardens on the walk this year include the Gelvin Garden at Krannert Art Museum and the Champaign County Mater Gardener’s Idea Garden. Bothof these spaces are maintained by volunteers and feature diverse plantings among attractive hardscaping. The Gelin Garden serves as the entry point to the Krannert Art Museum and stands alone as an art piece of its own. Learn more about this space from the volunteers who maintain it while enjoying one of our area’s finest public gardens.
The Idea Garden acts as homebase for the Garden Walk, featuring a large, spectacular and diverse garden accompanied by our ever-growing Garden Marketplace. Each year, this marketplace grows to offer more unique plants, garden decor and more. It will again feature the popular Birdhouse Competition, challenging youth and adults alike to build unique birdhouses for an array offantastic prizes. More information and registration for the contest is available from Master Gardener Carolyn Ottmers at cottme@gmail.com. Both the Garden Marketplace and Birdhouse Competition are free and open to the public.
The Garden Walk coincides with National Pollinator Week (June 16-22) and will feature a “Pollinator Quest” that is ongoing the entire week. During this quest, participants can record pictures of pollinating insects they observe to document the diversity of these all-important insects both in gardens and natural areas. A ton of other pollinator-centric, family-friendly activities and events have been planned around the Champaign-Urbana area for Pollinator Week, more information is available at go.illinois.edu/pollinatorweek.
The Garden Walk takes place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. June 21. Tickets are $10 (children under 10 are free) and may be purchased in advance at local vendors (Country Arbors or Prairie Gardens) by calling the Champaign County Extension Office at 217-333-7672 or online at go.illinos.edu/gardenwalk. Tickets are also available for sale the day of at the Idea Garden on South Lincoln Avenue in Urbana. All proceeds from this event support the Champaign County Master Gardener Program and its projects across central Illinois.
Ryan Pankau is horticulture extension educator with University of Illinois Extension serving Champaign, Ford, Iroquois and Vermilion counties.