You may signup for a Garden Tour without registering for the Conference. 
This must be done by using the Mail in Registration.

A Day of Garden Tours
Thursday July 17, 2008
Tours are $50

Begin your conference weekend by choosing one of six fantastic motor coach tours to private gardens in the area.  Each tour includes lunch in air-conditioned comfort and fabulous shopping opportunities.  A day of garden tours will be the perfect introduction to “Gardening Through the Continuum of Life.”

Garden tours will be offered rain or shine on Thursday, July 17, 2008.  Dress for the weather; don’t forget comfortable walking shoes and a camera to capture great remembrances of the day.  Details of each tour are listed below.

Stroll through a large estate garden with a sunken garden that was established in 1929.  Over the years, the space has been refurbished to include a knot garden and over 100 rose bushes; music and “dancing waters” add to the magic of this garden.  On another estate garden, enjoy a robust presentation of perennials and annuals along with a wide variety of native trees.  Local green-houses have developed unusual varieties of plants from seeds provided by this garden.  At another stop, explore a shade garden under towering oaks, maples, ashes and hickories that includes mass plantings of ground covers, many of which are natives.  Different textures of foliage and color plus the playful filtered light envelope the visitor in a truly joyful experience.  You’re in for a treat with a shopping opportunity at a 7-acre perennial farm nestled in landscape reflecting the glacial movement of another era.  Your visit should occur during peak daylily bloom, and in addition to plants and garden needs, there will be antiques and a wide variety of gift items to entice you.  Enjoy lunch at a local country club where the designer who created the garden beds surrounding the clubhouse will discuss the gardens. 

Visit the garden of a world-famous rose hybridizer known for developing the Knockout rose.  Here is your chance to discuss America's favorite flower with a true professional.  Tour a privately funded, non-profit botanical garden founded by a retired Rotarian in 1989.  This 20-acre expanse includes eighteen theme gardens, including a formal Japanese garden.  It holds a wonderful fern and moss garden, one of very few in the country, and it features specialty collections of annuals grown on site.  There is a fine gift store to tempt you as well.  Lunch will be served in a spacious meeting room, or you can enjoy dining alfresco on a newly installed patio.  Then enjoy a one-acre backyard garden that has been developed with a variety of annuals, perennials, vegetables, prairie and woodland plants in “trial” garden beds by the gardeners who are botanists turned professional garden writers and photographers.  You will see imaginative combinations of plants that you never dreamed possible.  Next, stroll among breathtaking display gardens, set along wooded paths as well as tranquil ponds, on a perennial farm that specializes in ornamental grasses.  There will be lots of perennials to choose from as well, and a unique shop is housed in a century-old dairy barn. 

This tour includes a glimpse of Milwaukee's signature architectural gem, the Milwaukee Art Museum, fondly known as "the Calatrava."  Pause for a look at an Italian villa garden, complete with water staircase.  The walking tours will include a garden developed by a person who admits to having “plant greed” and who grows as many species as possible in rock-filled, clay soil. Mini habitats hold a rain garden, a hardy cactus garden, a rock garden, and vegetable beds, among others. On site bee hives provide the pollinators. Another stop reveals ten years of gardening effort by savvy gardeners who collect antiques. They feature their collection of antique outhouses in color coordinated beds of perennials and annuals planted among hardy shrubs and trees. Each house and bed has its own unique charm and personality. To round out this tour, enjoy the vegetable and perennial beds and fruit trees in a suburban backyard.  Highlights include a drip irrigation system and vertical structures for tomatoes and cucumbers.  A local garden center will provide the opportunity to take home a plant or two or three plus that special garden tool you’ve been coveting. Or perhaps your interest leans more toward gift items for the special gardeners on your list. Savor lunch at a grille that the locals rave about.

Gardening neighbors invite you to enjoy the landscapes they created over the years.  Both contain perennials, herbs, shrubs, and trees…as well as annuals artfully placed for season-long color.  One property contains the challenge of black walnut trees.  The other holds shrub roses cared for by a long-time Rose Society member.  Garden sculpture complements the plant variety.  Then visit the garden of a world famous hybridizer who developed a variety everyone knows…  the Knockout rose.  Enjoy the rosarium where new varieties of low-maintenance roses are continually being tested.  Other garden beds reflect a collection of perennials, especially those in ranges of the gardener’s favorite color, blue.  Here’s a chance to “dish the dirt” with a true professional.  A green belt community developed during the Great Depression of the 1930s holds historic homes and postage-stamp size gardens that enchant the senses and reveal just how much gardening can be done in small spaces.  Main Street offers shopping opportunities for all interests, including two unique gift shops with garden items.  Lunch in an historic inn developed during the post WWII era.  An interesting history lesson replete with warm memories plus tasty food to satisfy your needs are part of this stop. 

Visit Wingspread, a “prairie style” home designed by Wisconsin born Frank Lloyd Wright for a local industrialist.  The surrounding gardens ...perennial, rose and herb...will please your eye.  Next, stroll in a large shade garden with a tremendous variety of hosta, pulmonaria, and other shade tolerant plants, including shrubs, that compete with each other for the filtered light and with the large trees for necessary water.  Another stop will let you enjoy three acres of woodlands, a meandering creek and 15 perennial and annual gardens.  This site is registered with the National Wildlife Federation as a Certified Wildlife Habitat.  Nearby, find a garden that reflects love of gardening absorbed from Swiss ancestors.  This kid friendly place contains a wide variety of perennials, both sun loving and shade tolerant.  Shop at a family owned garden center that began as a roadside vegetable stand where you’ll find hardy perennials plus gift items and clothing…so much to consider, you won’t want to leave.  Discover more historic architecture during lunch in a former drug store with touches of the old plus new twists to please your eye as well as your palate.