Olbrich's Home Garden Tour featuring Outdoor Living

July 11 Friday 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
July 12 Saturday 9 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Since hours are spent tending a garden into beauty, why not make it a space that is perfect for outdoor entertaining and relaxing? Olbrich’s Home Garden Tour Featuring Outdoor Living will show you how! Visit fabulous private gardens in the Village of Maple Bluff on Friday, July 11 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturday, July 12 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. See creative patios and pergolas, listen to soothing water features, and marvel at attention-grabbing plants. Wander through extensive lakeside gardens and stroll through intimate backyard gardens overflowing with beauty.
Olbrich extends a special invitation to tour private gardens created and maintained by talented home gardeners. Talk to the homeowners, landscape designers, and vendors of garden-related materials. Hear first-hand the story of each garden – how it has evolved into the masterpiece it is today and why specific plants were chosen for each area. This year, get great ideas for creating outdoor living spaces that everyone can enjoy. Let homeowners tell you about their journeys creating the outdoor spaces in which they play, relax, cook, entertain, and celebrate. Gain insights to use in your own garden and follow the trend toward outdoor living. Master gardeners and volunteers familiar with each garden will be available to answer questions about landscape design and individual plants.
What is outdoor living? According to the website of Home Garden Tour sponsor Benson’s, outdoor living, or fusion living, is the “seamless flow between outdoor and indoor living spaces.” Weather-resistant furniture, fabrics, grills, barbeques, portable gardens, fountains, water features, shade awnings, fans, and misters are just a few elements in this new trend.
Some homeowners have also chosen to bring the outdoors inside with additions of sunrooms or by adding interior décor. Look for a fiber-optic light in the picture window of one home. The lighting mimics the flowing ornamental grasses found throughout the garden.
Olbrich’s Home Garden Tour Featuring Outdoor Living is sponsored by Benson’s; Qual Line Fence Corp.; Klein’s Floral & Greenhouses; Landscape Designs, Inc. Steve Lesch; Kool View – Four Seasons Sunrooms; The Lang Companies; Madison Area Master Gardeners Association, Inc.; and Not Just Kitchens, LLC. Sponsors will have displays and representatives at some gardens on the tour.
Tickets are available beginning June 9 at the Greeter Desk at Olbrich Botanical Gardens. Advance tickets are $10 for Olbrich members and $12 for the public. Tour-day tickets are $12 for Olbrich members and $14 for the public. Proceeds benefit Olbrich Botanical Gardens. Become a member of the Olbrich Botanical Society now through July 12 and receive a free Home Garden Tour ticket. Membership forms are available at all ticket locations, Olbrich’s Greeter Desk, all home gardens during the tour, and by calling 608-246-4724.
Tickets are available at the following locations:
• Greeter Desk at Olbrich Botanical Gardens, 3330 Atwood Ave., Madison
• Beauty Blossoms, 701 N. High Point Road, Madison
• Felly's Flowers, with locations at:
• 607 N. Sherman Ave., Madison
• 7858 Mineral Point Road, Madison
• 2701 University Ave., Madison
• 205 E. Broadway , Monona
• 6353 Nesbitt Road, Fitchburg
• America's Best Flowers Garden Center, 4311 Vilas Hope Road, Cottage Grove
To purchase tickets the day of the tour, go to the garden at 29 Cambridge Court. Turn onto Cambridge Road from N. Sherman, then turn left onto Cambridge Court.
Olbrich Botanical Gardens is located in Madison, Wisconsin on the shore of Lake Monona at 3330 Atwood Avenue. For more information visit Olbrich’s website at www.olbrich.org or call 608-246-4550.

29 Cambridge Court
An abundant landscape design of colorful annuals and tropicals, plus old-fashioned hollyhocks, describes this lakeside house. Interesting trees, including a tricolor beech and weeping spruce, are featured. Colorful containers around the patio and a border along the driveway highlight annual and tropical plants. The homeowners moved into this Nantucket-style home in 2000 after totally rebuilding the house. The home was designed by architect Doug Kozel, based on Stern Shingle Style design, in which the exterior walls of the second story are uniformly covered with shingles. The award-winning brick mason, who worked on this home, later went on to work on the Overture Center. The driveway was constructed of reclaimed Milwaukee street brick and there is a maple-leaf medallion at the center of the circular driveway. The maple-leaf medallion is also repeated in a circular patio at the rear of the house.

17 Harbort Drive
The homeowners moved into this house in 1990 and have been gardening here ever since. One of the homeowners was a theatre teacher and looks at the garden as a stage. Lighting is an important element that adds drama to this garden, including a weeping cherry tree and a Sargent crabapple that are up-lighted from the ground. Hyperion daylilies, salvias, hardy roses, flowering shrubs, a mandevilla vine on a trellis, and lilacs grown on standards are also featured. A solarium was added to bring the outdoors inside. The homeowners worked very closely with their neighbors in the backyard, whose gardens are also on the Home Garden Tour. They took out a chainlink fence between their yards and have worked cooperatively on their landscapes and plant selection so it’s nearly impossible to tell where one yard begins and the other ends.

77 Fuller Drive
Though this 1947 ranch house has been extensively remodeled, the home and garden maintain a retro style. This garden features many creative touches such as turquoise patio tables and a custom-made mailbox. The color is echoed in a planting in front of the large picture window. Inside the window is a striped ceramic pot containing a whimsical fiber optic light that mimics the form of ornamental grasses in the front yard. The front yard includes two large miscanthus, feather reed grass, knock out roses, annuals, a large bed of baptisia, and a sweetautumn clematis on the porch. Along the driveway is an interesting mix of skyrocket junipers for vertical accent, combined with low junipers and a collection of dwarf conifers. A screen of potted arborvitae is at the end of the driveway. A Japanese maple, a small vegetable garden, daylily and hosta collections, and interesting shrubs complete the backyard.

128 Kensington Drive
The homeowners did most of the work on this landscape, including designing an addition, fencing, walls, front and back patios, and a pergola over the hot tub. The front garden, started five years ago, echoes the colors of the house and features many interesting plants. A Norway maple tree was recently lost, so this area is being redesigned to thrive in more sunlight. A potted rosemary topiary sits near the front door. A weeping Meyer lilac staked on a copper rod also accents the front of the house. The side yard includes a boxwood hedge, upright barberry, contorted hazelnut, and a blue dayflower. A reclaimed glider and antique moss-covered potting bench from a family farm add charm. In the back, a garden shed, including antique stained glass windows, was built to mimic the design of the addition. Numerous interesting plants including wisteria, Japanese maples, a weeping redbud, tricolor beech, smoke tree, large magnolia, dogwoods, redleaf rose, filbert, and weeping larch fill in the backyard while plumepoppies provide a vertical accent against the back fence.

232 Kensington Drive
The homeowners moved into this home in 1986 and have been gardening here ever since. The simple hedges and hosta border in front of this home belie the interesting landscape in the backyard. Ivy grows up the brick walls on the side of the driveway while climbing hydrangea and Virginia creeper almost obscure the garage. A large deck with many container plantings overlooks the backyard. The backyard features a large Kentucky coffeetree and a small pond with a waterfall next to a bloodgood Japanese maple. The pond includes goldfish, which are brought inside during the winter. After draining the pond, fish emulsion is pumped onto the garden beds and makes an excellent fertilizer. Borders around the backyard house an extensive plant collection and interesting decorative artifacts. During summer expect to see phlox, lilies, large allium seed heads, miscanthus, and Mexican feather grass, which is not hardy but has come back from seed.

731 Wilder Drive
The homeowners moved into this house eight years ago and have since built large, curved retaining walls, brought in 100 yards of soil, and added formal brick patios in front of the house. In addition, espaliered pears were planted in 2001. Sweetautumn clematis grows up a pergola and steppable sedum grows in between patio stones. Artistry is evident in the color combinations throughout the property. The homeowners keep the color wheel in mind when designing garden beds. In front, many burgundy plants echo the burgundy color of the home’s door and shutters. In the back of the house, blue pots filled with annuals and tropicals surround a brick patio used as a dining area. A colorful border around the back of the property also attracts hummingbirds and butterflies. The backbone of the border is created by arborvitae, Frasier fir, and pines. In front of the conifers, purple coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, and colorful annuals add flare.

825 McBride Road
The homeowners moved into this home in 1992 and started working on the garden right away. The front garden, described by the homeowners as a “Monet Garden,” was designed by Olbrich Horticulturist Christian Harper to provide both color and fragrance. The garden is meant to be viewed both from the house and from the street. An arbor leads to the side yard, which features a small pond and a patio with many colorful containers. A large brugmansia is overwintered in the garage, while a fringe tree is by the barbeque. The back gardens took several years to develop. The area was terraced with Baraboo Bluff boulders and planted with many varieties of hosta, astilbe, sedge, and other shade-loving plants. A fountain and two Japanese maples accent the backyard while a daylily garden flourishes along the driveway.

Maple Bluff Beach Park Gardens
This lovely spot on the lake is open to the public and is used for children’s arts and athletics programs, wedding receptions, and other functions. Even non-gardeners respond to the color and beauty in this park. The window boxes are planted for all four seasons and feature cold-tolerant pansies and violas in spring, summer annuals, mums and kale for fall color, and, finally, evergreen boughs to last through the winter. Liners used inside the fiberglass window boxes make it easy to plant the seasonal displays and quickly pop them into place. Beds and median plantings rely on a backbone of hardy perennials. At the ends of the medians, colorful annuals are added. The abundant colors and textures, and the long narrow shape of the median plantings, creates the effect of a mural as cars drive by. An efficient drip irrigation system under the mulch keeps the plantings looking their best in the heat of summer.