Illinois Valley/Cave Junction Garden Club Demo Garden Tour, September 2024

Photos by Marcie Katz and Janine Salvatti

You know how in life some things are more fun than others? Well, about 15 friends from the Illinois Valley-Cave Junction Garden Club made the hour-long jaunt to visit our demo gardens for a tour. What a super group!

Marcie and I showed them around the gardens. They were enthusiastic and inquisitive. They had varied levels of gardening experience and were keen on native plants and the environment. In fact, individuals in the group spent $120 in the Native Plant Nursery! These purchases sparked quite a good-natured debate since most folks carpooled and car space was limited. “Load person or plant…person or plant?” We were lucky it did not devolve into rock-paper-scissors!

We started the tour in the Gathering Place and ended there with cold drinks and time for sharing. The weather was lovely under our big old oak and was perfect for making new friends. Their group went on to lunch and some headed into Jacksonville for the community-wide garage sale.  Kind of a perfect day in my book.

As a personal aside, I’d like to share an “aha moment”. The Illinois Valley-Cave Junction Garden Club could not accept our initial tour invite for late May, as explained by their president, Ron Morse, because “that’s a very busy time for our gardeners”. They requested late August or early September. We agreed on September 6^th. I fretted about the timing; I didn’t want to disappoint them since our gardens are at their best in May and early June. To my relief, I discovered our gardens presented very nicely, even in September. Our guests were not disappointed.

Are there other JCMGA activities that might be suitable for an expanded timeline to decompress our spring calendar?

A special thank you to Alice Ingraham MG 2024 for her creation of the impressive panel (one of two) she loaned us for the tour. She created these out of cardboard!