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Community Corner

Jardin du Lac Tours Lake Saint Louis Gardens

Club members were treated to warm hospitality and some beautiful landscaping.

Friday June 3 was a very hot day to tour gardens but that’s just what the members of Jardin du Lac’s garden club did.

Five of their members invited the club to come and tour their gardens. You can tell from the photos that these ladies are indeed gardeners. From the sunny cottage garden to the woodland shade gardens, we were in for a real treat. And speaking of treats, the ladies ended their tour with a wonderful lunch hosted by Charlene Wood.

The first garden on the tour was the home of Jo Brown. Her landscape is only three years old with a very sunny location. The problem she encountered was a deep and unsightly drainage sewer,  so she worked with a designer to landscape around the sewer by adding a gravel bed lined with pine trees, "Knock Out" roses, Burning Bushes, Rose of Sharon, Butterfly Bush, ornamental grasses, Cardinal Flower, and some annuals for additional color. Now the birds and butterflies hang out at her feeders and she enjoys sitting outside watching them.

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Next on the garden tour is the cottage garden of Sheri Menscher. Her garden is four years old with the fence being added in 2010. Sheri has wasted no time adding plants to fill in the gardens. Her cottage garden is divided into a fragrant garden, shade garden, rose garden, English garden, butterfly garden, vegetable garden and a hodge podge garden. Whew! That’s a lot of gardens to take care of. In the back part of the yard she has added a pergola sitting area for shade in which she can sit, read and relax. With all these gardens I don’t know how she finds time to relax.

Its obvious Sheri loves cute garden ornaments because they are everywhere, tucked in between plants and on the fence. There are even Flower Fairies in the shade garden.

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Next stop is the garden of Leslie Seley. Leslie is Chairman of the garden club’s Missouri wildflower quilt that is hand embroidered by club members and I think she takes the responsibility to the next level by adding many Missouri wildflowers to her gardens. She is inspired by the flowers she embroiders and has added Tradescantia - Spiderwort, Echinacea - Cone Flower and Asclepias - Butterfly Weed to her gardens this year.

Next stop is Karla Long’s garden. She has it right. After hours of hard work in the garden she can relax in her pool. Ahhh…refreshing! Around the pool are many ornamental grasses, day lilies and Spirea shrubs.

Karla’s woodland garden actually connects up with Charlene Wood’s woodland garden which was our last stop and I have to say was the best garden on the tour. Oh, the others have a lot of promise being that they are so new. Charlene’s is a more established garden with mature Hosta from the tiny "Lemon Lime" to the huge "Sum and Substance."

Charlene has created wandering paths through the woodland where you might come upon a little lost lamb, or a gnome watching over the garden. Then you see a child’s purple chair with a pot of flowers where the seat should be. There is something interesting to see at every turn. She did seem to be lacking a bench for the casual browser to rest upon and contemplate life. I could have stayed wandering the paths longer if my stomach wasn’t growling. Oh yes I did say there was lunch waiting for us at the last garden. Everyone brought something to eat. There were more refreshing summer salads than on a steak house buffet. We did not go home hungry.

In spite of the soaring temperatures the gardens were inspiring, the company was entertaining and the food was delicious. What more can you ask for?

If you have a beautifully landscaped yard or have unique garden ornaments that you are proud of and would like to see features on Patch.com, contact me at Bahrmasel@msn.com.

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