Join a free docent lead walk in the Tule River Parkway Gardens on Saturday Oct 18 from 9 – 10:30 a.m.
The gardens are part of the Tule River Parkway in Porterville. The tour starts in the Jaye Street parking lot across the street from Harbor Freight at 9 a.m. and returns to the parking lot by 10:30 am. The tour uses easy to walk ADA accessible paths and the aim is to enjoy the gardens as we stroll.
The tour is led by Cathy Capone who encourages questions about native plants, garden design and maintenance. Guests of all ages are welcome.
The gardens are planted and maintained by community volunteers. The Tule River Parkway Association is celebrating the beginning of the second year of monthly Nature Tours in the Tule River Corridor.
The Native Plant Gardens demonstrate that by selecting for seasonal flower-color you can design a garden which has flowers every month of the year. Native plants use up to 80 percent less water than traditional garden plants.
Native plants also support local native wildlife. If you plant native plants in your home garden, birds will visit the plants which provide food or shelter.
Hummingbirds will feast on California Fuchsia. Wild sunflowers wave wildly as Lesser Goldfinches hang upside down harvesting the seed.
Each plant supports part of the ecosystem. Fall is also a time to note the changing seasons, deciduous trees such as the cottonwood change leaf color before the leaves fall as do the leaves of the native Rogers Red Grape. The Valley Oak and the Milkweed are two of the plants which drop their seed at this time of year
Use the gardens to inform your own garden design and plant selections. Featured plants include the following flowering plants:
California Fuchsia – red/orange; Showy Penstemon and Woolly Blue Curls- purple; Great Valley Bladderpod, Goldenrod, and sunflower- yellow.
There are always surprises in the gardens. A few California lilac have started to bloom. These plants normally bloom in the early spring. The Scrub Jaye and Acorn Woodpeckers are flying in and out of the mature Valley Oaks snatching and then carrying away acorns.
There are no restrooms in this section of the park. There are 8 volunteer-built benches throughout the garden section.
The Tule River Parkway Native Plant Gardens are open year-round and are located along the Tule River Parkway, a City of Porterville public park just west of Jaye Street in Porterville. More information is available on the tuleriverparkwayassociation.org website or by calling Capone 559-361-9164.
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