PORT TOWNSEND — Six private Port Townsend gardens will be open for public viewing from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. today for the 19th annual Secret Garden Tour.
At the same time, Jefferson County Master Gardeners will offer some 1,700 plants at a plant sale at the Haines Place Park and Ride, 1615 W. Sims Way.
Tickets to the self-guided tour are $20 today at the Haines Place Park and Ride.
During the tour, Master Gardeners will be at each of the sites to answer questions.
“Most of the gardens are gardens that you wouldn’t see as you are walking around town. They are hidden,” said Diane Threlkeld, spokeswoman for Jefferson County Master Gardeners.
“These secret gardens demonstrate the variety possible in Northwest Maritime Gardens,” she added.
The owners of the gardens and the addresses will be revealed to ticket holders, who will receive brochures outlining possible destinations.
Six gardens
Threlkeld describes the gardens as:
■ A lush organic garden bursting with blooms planted for artistic impact.
■ A hardworking community vegetable garden that creates excess produce for the food bank and opportunities for some local youths.
■ A terraced mix of vegetables, fruit, ornamentals and natives with some unique plant choices.
■ A relaxed landscape with a true secret garden feel that’s evolved around a late 1800s Victorian house.
■ Native plants on the bluff.
■ A miraculous cleanup and recovery of a historic industrial site that was once a waterfront marker, gas lamp plant, electric plant and housed the city creosote tank.
Viewers will see how gardeners have worked with issues common to Port Townsend such as browsing deer, raccoons, otters, perched water tables, low-water/low-maintenance, weeds, soil and drainage, Threlkeld said.
The plants at the sale have been grown by Jefferson County Master Gardeners.
The tour and plant sale will benefit the Master Gardener Foundation’s grant program, which provides awards supporting environmental stewardship and horticulture-based, sustainable projects and scholarships in Jefferson County.
For more information, go to http://jcmgf.org/secret-garden or call 360-437-7975 .
