Gardens

Donna and Don Altman – 2203 Bay Street – Monday

Landscape Architect, Brad Hill, designed this garden in 2019 to take advantage of the beautiful live oak, dogwood and tulip trees, as well as to attract pollinators and provide privacy for outdoor living on a busy corner lot. Many of the plants selected had a purpose: podocarpus contribute a privacy hedge, oak leaf red holly trees buffer the property line and juniper trees serve as screening. A variety of low maintenance native plants adorn the shade areas – autumn ferns, farfugiums, hydrangeas and azaleas. Through a careful selection of perennials and annuals, the garden provides a wonderful habitat for birds, bees and butterflies. The sun garden lends a unique calming touch with a water feature and a reproduction of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Garden Sprite. A raised garden bed for herbs and vegetables completes the garden.

Alexis Bomar – 2009 Bay Street – Monday

The Schein family built this house in 1939 when this end of Bay Street was considered the country. It then sat on three lots and has been through several changes. The current owner fell in love with the mature camellias, the house and the view and loves to experiment with plants. The garden, like the house, has many influences: Edward Marchetti with Buds and Blooms, designed the parterre to the right of the house. The late Frances Parker helped with the plantings around the brick patio added four years ago. The tall gingko tree in the back left yard was brought from China by a sea captain in the mid 1940’s. The odd-looking plant in the blue pot on the patio is a plumeria, or frangipani, and is kept in the garage in the winter. The raised beds on the right side have been reserved for strawberries and whatever volunteers to grow there.

Katie and John Tashijan – 1 Hancock Street – Tuesday

Anyone familiar with Beaufort history knows about Tidalholm, the mansion Edgar Fripp built in 1853, surrounded by the Beaufort River. The home welcomed many Fripp famiy members until 1861 when the Union seized it, turning it into a Union hospital during the Civil War. It was later auctioned and purchased by a Frenchman, who gifted it back to the Fripp family. Today, the home’s 1.38 acre displays an English garden relying on Asian jasmine ground cover, magnificent live oaks, as well as countless magnolias, palms, gardenias and podocarpus. The home’s new owners have thoughtfully restored the mansion, and added a large carriage/guest house which adopted the original home’s style.

Naomi and Paul Trask – 2215 Wilson Street – Wednesday

‘Napa’s Garden’ is a dream come true for Naomi and Paul. Four years ago when the couple started a plant based diet, the short supply of organic vegetables motivated Naomi to research a simple way to grow her own tasty favorites. This is not an ordinary farm garden; it is an urban garden growing in the backyard parking space just two blocks from Bay Street. Using well designed rectangular tubs, the garden has grown to 14 tubs. With a blend of soil enriched with healthy mulch, carrots, kale, berries etc. are sweeter, full of moisture and most appealing in flavor and color. The guru/mentor supporting this development is Rita’s Roots’, a store and agriculturist in Charleston, SC. Rita Bockman’s website was a guide for seeds, soil and other simple strategies to create your own organic vegetable garden. Naomi’s knowledge has provided the basic skills for eating healthy, as well as the skills to preserve, dehydrate or freeze the overflow from this small 21st century home garden.

Frances and Jim Ackerman – 610 Bladen Street – Wednesday

Our garden and yard are a blend of our personalities and commitment to nature. We endeavor to celebrate our beautiful live oak that is the pinnacle of our yard and home by minimizing the use of grass and substituting ornamental shrubs. We celebrate neighborhood garden history with transplants of agapanthus and ‘pink perfection’ camellias from Fletcher and Pinkney gardens. We try to incorporate our strong utilitarian values with our kitchen garden and chicken enclosure. We blend in our love of entertaining with our whimsical back yard, patio and fire pit. We finish with our love of peace with a walkway for reflection.

Lindsey and Paul Varnes – 882 Broad River Road – Thursday

What a thrill to be part of the Garden a Day Tour! We are a large, busy family, and our yard is broken into two distinct areas. The back yard is a functional, natural area for our family to play in. Our front yard is still a work in progress as it grows and matures since its 2017 rebirth. What started as one large bed along the road, is slowly becoming the walk-through garden we dreamed of. Our garden style is low/no maintenance evergreens and perennials, allowing more of a natural growth with minimal pruning. A large live oak allows for shade gardening, while other areas are in full sun. We are still adding, transplanting and loving the experience. We want to pass the wonder and joy of gardening on to our kids, who helped to plant over 30 bulbs this winter.

Cindy and Dr. Brad Collins – 41 Sunset Bluff – Friday

Melrose was built on the banks of Factory Creek in 1905. The garden has thoughtfully evolved over the years with respect for the surrounding beautiful lowcountry landscape, and to maintain natural habitats for wildlife. The stately live oaks from the original landscape plan create a canopy over century old camellias and azaleas, where the owners have incorporated hydrangeas, ferns and other shade loving plants. The westerly facing side of the home has a lawn flooded with afternoon sun and views of sunsets over Beaufort’s old point. The garden features a mix of elements old and new. Boxwood gardens have been restored and expanded around a kitchen parterre created as a gift by a loving husband. An old pump house serves as a potting shed adjacent to the original cistern tower, while a new outdoor living space and pool were added for outdoor family fun. The garden is a mix of past and present, shade and sunlight, formal and whimsical, but most importantly, it is a reflection of a spot enjoyed by family and friends over the years with places to rest, reflect, work and play.