The garden, home, and studios of Annie and “Mr.Jeff” bring a smile to your face. Their small lot is packed with Re-Art and a diverse palate of plant life……with many native varieties to enjoy.

Mr. Jeff makes outdoor durable Art out of industrial discards and multiples that can be extracted from the waste stream, such as marbles, corks, golfballs, brick, roofing ,etc. Vermicomposting is a favorite addition to your visit there as Mr. Jeff has an active worm farm as well as a small nursery.

Event Extras:  Throughout the day we will have Art and Plants for sale
12:00 pm or there abouts…..Vermicomposting….1/2 hour demo:  A to Z of using red-wiggler worms to produce high quality vermi-compost in a back yard setting.
2:00 pm:  Installing Alternative Garden Edging including, bottles, metal roofing, brick, stone, concrete and industrial surplus.

Additional Photos from the day of the stroll.

We¹ve been working on our garden for about ten years. Our goal has been to create a cool and quite outdoor rooms in which to relax and entertain friends.

There is no specific style of gardening, we¹ve just thrown it all together like a large floral arrangement. The front garden is fenced in for privacy and to make the garden feel part of the porch. The back gardens are edged with river rocks gathered over the years from our favorite swimming hole. We grow some herbs but never vegetables, we prefer to support several our local organic farms.

We keep our garden projects small and low maintenance so we can spend most of our summer days by a river.

Additional photos from the day of the stroll.

This wonderful first year garden, attached to a newly constructed solar home is a must see. With raised beds, pebble pathways, and blooming flowers, all in a private fenced in yard. Enjoy live music and tastes from the garden.

The FCG is an 18 family, 2500 square foot cooperatively run community garden in the Falconhurst area of West Asheville. 2009 is our second year. There are 2 tiers of membership: the weekly members work one day a week in the garden, the monthly members come to the monthly community workday. We share the harvest equitably.

The FCG is located on a sunny hill facing south, in what we call “The Back 40” a large open green space, made up of a patchwork of privately owned land. It is part of one of our member’s back yard. Our garden used to be a lawn and we are still building our soil and fighting Bermuda grass. We currently grow 20 kinds of vegetables and herbs. We have 2 thriving beehives (the Love hive and the Peace hive). We collect rainwater in several cisterns for irrigation. In the future we want to expand the size of our garden, add a cob oven, and incorporate drip irrigation.

We try to involve the wider community in as much as possible, including monthly potlucks and a wonderful Harvest Festival. We are supported by membership dues and have also received support from the Bountiful Cities Project and the 4-H Club of Buncombe County.

Additional photo from the day of the stroll.

Our compound and garden came to be because we cut down the dead cherry tree, which brought down the fence, and because the warehouse for Cherry Tree Beads is on site.

This is only our second year gardening together.

Purpose of our gardens: to become more self sufficient, teach our children how to live in harmony with the earth, create a beautiful environment, our enjoyment, food, herbs, and because we love playing in the dirt!

Gardens include; Aquaponic systems (2), ponds(4), fruit trees, wild flowers, edible landscaping, shade garden, herbs- native/medicinal, art studio, and play houses. Almost everything we’ve created has been done using found and recycled materials.

“Aquaponics is the combination of aquaculture (fish farming) and hydroponics (soilless plant culture). In aquaponics, the nutrient-rich water that results from raising fish provides a source of natural fertilizer for the growing plants. As the plants consume the nutrients, they help to purify the water that the fish live in. A natural microbial process keeps both the fish and plants healthy and helps sustain an environment in which they both can thrive. Essentially, aquaponics is organic gardening, but without the dirt.”

Future plans include; tilapia for ponds, more rain barrels, solar power, learning to use the herbs, and turning the side lot into urban farm. Dream would be to have hens, goat, small green house, raised beds, bee hives, fruit trees, and more aquaculture systems.

We feel extremely blessed that the cutting of the cherry tree was the catalyst for our gardening project and for the friendship between our two families. Last year our tomatoes tasted like summer, and we had many communal meals from the frozen tomato sauce during the cold weather. We look forward to many more!

Event Extras: Display and sale of Cherry Tree Beads, chalk painting & tree house tours for kids, tours of the on-site artist studio, and a kid-run lemonade stand.

Additional photos from the day of the stroll.

Not being city folk, it was important for us to surround ourselves with natural beauty. This house had been condemned 5 years ago and the innards of the house got re-done but the outside needed lots of love.

Year one was all hardscape to replace the weeds, debris and overgrown trees. The backbone to the garden had to happen before the planting began. Because of the small space we were very selective with our plant choices.

Our original thoughts were for the majority of the plantings to be perennials and shrubs but as the garden progressed we realized the importance of growing our own food as well. We’ve added dwarf fruit trees, blueberries, strawberries, herbs and veggies throughout the garden space to make it edible as well as attractive.

We installed 700 gallons of rainwater collection last year with strategically placed rain barrels and expanded that to almost 900 gallons this year. A solar panel and pump was added to assist in watering our 200 sq. ft. raised bed area.

Projects that are in the works are a pergola that is a delightful summer sitting area now but plans are to screen it in for bug protection then replace the screen panels with clear corrugated panels for winter growing of lettuce and greens.

Other plans include an additional solar panel to power the waterfall for the fish pond, adding an additional raised bed for veggies, and building more cold frames (currently we have 4 frames) to increase our cold weather vegetable production.

Our garden feeds our body and our soul in addition to inspiring others to grow their own food.

Event extras: guided tours various times, talks about 4 season gardening, rainwater harvesting, solar pumps, small garden spaces

Additional photos from the day of the stroll.

Thanks to gardener Extraordinaire Tom Jordan and Asheville GreenWorks, landscaping at the West Asheville Branch Library includes a mix of deciduous trees along the street and eye-pleasing combinations of shrubs and perennials around the building. Plantings include rhododendrons and azaleas, rose of Sharon and St. John’s wort, pansies, violas, ferns, lemon balm, salvia, cone flower, soapwort, gooseneck loosestrife, and others.

Click map image for larger version

The Garden Stroll stretches across the greater West Asheville area.
All neighborhoods are easily accessible from Haywood Road.

A detailed map will be available on the day of the stroll at the
WEST ASHEVILLE LIBARY

Signs along Haywood Road will guide you to the individual gardens.

We look forward to your visit!

The LaZoom Tour Bus will run between the
West Asheville Garden clusters!
Thanks to our LaZoom bus sponsors:
West End Bakery
City Real Estate
Wholesale Glass and Mirror
Universal Joint