The Master Gardeners of Hamilton County are pleased to present their 37th Annual Garden Tour, coming the weekend of June 22 and 23.
This year they are highlighting eight unique gardens in the Red Bank, Hixson, and Soddy Daisy areas.
Have you ever seen 250 daylily varieties in one garden? Have you seen palm trees or eucalyptus trees in Chattanooga? Have you seen a loofah gourd patch? Have you seen a stump garden? Have you seen a garden that is also an outdoor classroom providing an outstanding learning experience for elementary school students?
Now you will.
These surprises and many others await you on the MGHC 2024 Garden Tour. They hope this experience provides the chance to immerse yourselves in the vision of other gardeners sparking ideas for your own garden or perhaps just to enjoy several hours walking around in nature.
Tickets for the 2024 MGHC Garden Tour are $20. Sign up here on their website or buy your ticket at the first garden you visit. The price of a ticket is $20 and all revenue will go toward the Master Gardener scholarship and community projects.
The tour can be started at any of the gardens, which can be visited in any order. Tours of the gardens are self-guided, so feel free to take your time exploring the properties. Parking is on the street or where designated. (They recommend carpooling if possible.)
As a note, as most of these are private homes, they cannot guarantee that all locations are handicapped accessible. They suggest wearing comfortable clothing and appropriate shoes for walking. Home owners and Master Gardeners will be on hand to answer questions. There will also be signs and plant lists for identifying many of the plantings.
Here's a preview of what you'll experience on the tour:
Daylily Delight
Master Gardeners since 2013, George and Ginny Gannaway have a passion for daylilies, though their gardens also contain hostas and potted plants. When you walk through their gardens at 788 Shearer Cove Road in Chattanooga, you’ll see more than 225 different hybrid daylily varieties. Their daylily collection includes a daylily that George’s grandmother purchased in 1956 for $10 (when Coke was a nickel).
Magical Moments at Alpine Crest School
The Alpine Crest Elementary School Public Garden at 4700 Stagg Road in Red Bank provides a magical experience for kids and adults alike. Built in 1957, Alpine Crest sits on 17 acres. In 2014 Master Gardener JoAnn Langston teamed with staff, students, and parents to create raised vegetable beds, pollinator beds, and a small orchard with apple, peach, and plum trees.
Structures include a greenhouse, walking trails, a certified Monarch Butterfly bed, and six bluebird houses monitored by the Chattanooga Bluebird Society. An arboretum contains 34 trees that have been signed and mapped. At Alpine Crest, all students have a chance to get outside to learn about and enjoy the magic of nature firsthand!
Suburban Sanctuary
You’ll step into a lush personal sanctuary when you visit the gardens of Hat Chau at 5797 Taggert Drive in Hixson. Hat Chau began his life in Cambodia, where he was forced to work long hours in rice paddies. It was then that he decided to learn how to grow food to survive the kind of starvation he and his family experienced. As a teen in the US, he did yard work after school and each summer. As an adult, he worked for landscapers and nurseries until he founded his own landscaping business.
In 2001 Hat Chau bought a modest duplex in Hixson and devised a garden he characterizes as “my sanctuary.” He cleared the land around the duplex and established a series of gardens in different styles. Some sections are formal, some wild, some peaceful and relaxing. Flowering perennials and annuals give color through the seasons.
Peonies, hydrangeas, and daylilies bloom in spring. Hibiscus blooms in summer along with summer-to-fall bloomers like canna lilies, oriental lilies, and dahlias. You’ll see vegetables and herbs in Hat Chau’s gardens too. Come to Hat Chau’s gardens to see how you can—over time—establish your own suburban sanctuary.
Country Cottage Scenes
In the Summer of 1996, Jackie and Mitch Collins moved to 6635 Declaration Drive in Hixson. Theirs was a colonial style home with a weedy lawn, a clay and chert sloped back yard, and no established gardening space. Over the years, the Collins family has worked to establish a garden with a country cottage feel.
The property holds garden beds, hardscapes, a tiered growing space, and a garden house. It's primarily a shade garden of ferns, hostas, hydrangeas, and salvia, but Jackie has interspersed beds of annuals and perennials to add color and texture. Stone paths meander from the front curb through and around the property, displaying picturesque scenes you can enjoy you stroll through this country garden.
A Garden for Sharing
Purchased in late 2018, Diane Shelly and Steve McMurty's home at 6465 Harbor Master Drive in Hixson sits on a .6-acre yard. The yard was a blank slate, but it held promise as one of the few flat yards on the ridge—perfect for a vegetable garden! Dealing with chert was a first for these Florida gardeners, so Diane took the Master Gardener class to learn something about the dirt she'd be working with. She designed beds to manage waterflow: Eleven raised beds grow organic vegetables “for the family and half the neighbors.”
Apple and pear trees and elderberry, raspberry, and blueberry bushes bear fruit for baking. A mixture of sun and shade provides opportunities for a variety of annuals, perennials, natives, and ornamental plants. Many of the annuals are started early in the season in their greenhouse and hardened off on a large potting bench. Scattered throughout the gardens are sculptures Diane and Steve collect.
As the President of the Chattanooga Bluebird Society, Diane has several birdhouses in the back yard, and you may see residents in them during the tour. Diane and Steve are excited to share their bountiful garden with you on the garden tour, just as they look forward to sharing the fruits of their labor with friends, neighbors, and transient wildlife that appears their yard.
A Glimpse of Paradise
Sharon Johnson characterizes her garden as “half Japanese and half redneck, with a sprinkling of British stumpery.” Sharon and her husband Steve started their gardening adventure at 6513 Stonington Drive in Hixson 29 years ago.
Located on a steep slope, their lot required extensive erosion control. Now their lot features a half-acre rock garden with perimeter of woods filled with ferns, Japanese maple, variegated Solomon’s seal, nandinas, English ivy, hydrangeas, mahonia, and aucuba japonica.
The wooded area also contains a nursery for Japanese maple seedlings, two compost piles, and a bench for viewing a hillside of hellebores. Clippings and leaves from the lot are used to mulch paths and larger branches become “redneck” fencing.
The inner yard contains mature Japanese maples and numerous relaxing areas for viewing. A backyard waterfall plunges into a pond that houses goldfish and waterlilies. Rock paths meander through purple clover, heuchera, spirea, and dwarf honeysuckle. The Johnsons view their garden as both whimsical and spiritual, and you’ll enjoy both aspects of this glimpse of paradise in Hixson.
Woodsy Wonderland
When Rich and Brenda Forsythe purchased their sloped property at 9308 Smith Cemetery Circle in Soddy Daisy in 2019, it was a tangled mass of trees and vines. In 5 years the couple has transformed it into a woodsy wonderland. Their “B&Z Garden,” named after Brenda and her pooch, Zena, required massive rock carrying to control erosion.
A new front garden consists of mammoth hydrangeas, Arizona cypress, Chamaecyparis (aka false cypress), and Selaginella (clubmoss). Front and back yards boast an array of dogwoods, crepe myrtles, and Japanese maples. Sandstone steps lead down through an Asian inspired rock garden filled with colorful annuals, perennials, and conifers.
The landscape’s centerpiece is a 25-foot waterfall that plunges into the pond below, where colorful goldfish swim among the 5 varieties of waterlilies. The back of the property is bordered by a winding wet season stream lined with birch, ferns, hostas, and heuchera, creating a natural woodland. Brenda says she doesn’t need a vacation—the beauty and serenity of her backyard is her vacation.
A Garden Full of Stories
Alan and Tracy Johnson moved to their home at 10020 Lovell Road in Soddy Daisy in 2000, soon after their marriage. Tracey comments that they started their life together by clearing the woods that surrounded the property: “We both loved the outdoors and looked forward to raising our family here.” With their sons Jason and Chase they started a hobby farm with cows, pigs, goats and chickens. The family grew vegetables and fruit.
Alan passed away over 4 years ago, and Tracey continues to work on the property, which includes shaded areas with hostas, hydrangeas, Lenten roses, and coral bells. Sunny areas hold daylilies, peonies, and elephant ears. A vegetable garden holds produce and loofah vines. She still has 2 goats, Opie and Andy, who reside on the farm with Tracey, her dog Polly, and several chickens and guineas.
Tracey remembers where the family found each planting. For example, “The maple trees from McMinnville we planted 18 years ago. The blueberry bushes we dug up from a blueberry farm going out of business in Dayton, TN. All the daylilies along the left side of the driveway are from side of the roads in Soddy Daisy. Irises are from the Soddy Daisy Post Office when they wanted them removed.” The plants, animals, and stories, she says, “go on and on.”
Tickets for the 2024 MGHC Garden Tour are $20. Sign up here on their website or buy your ticket at the first garden you visit. The price of a ticket is $20 and all revenue will go toward the Master Gardener scholarship and community projects.
2024 Garden Tour
- Saturday, June 22, 10:00 am to 5:00 pm
- Sunday, June 23, 11:00 am to 5:00 pm
- Rain or Shine!
- Cost $20
- Children Under 12 Free
- Tour Locations: Red Bank, Hixson, Soddy Daisy
- Parking is free at all locations
- Purchase Tickets in Advance or Pay on the Tour