Ron’s pond. Photo courtesy of West Asheville Garden Stroll
By Hannah Van Vlack
The West Asheville Garden Stroll (WAGS) returns for the 15th year, fittingly featuring 15 gardens in the Horney Heights neighborhood along Sulphur Springs Road. On Saturday, September 14, the event will begin with a kick-off at 10:30 a.m. at Lucy Herring School, where stroll guides will be available from 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. This event is free and open to the public; all are welcome, rain or shine, but pets must be left at home as no dogs are permitted in the gardens.
“The kick-off is a WAGS tradition, offering the opportunity to mingle with other gardeners and enjoy an entertaining program,” says WAGS coordinator Sarah Rubin. “This year we’ll have a short presentation about Bountiful Cities’ FEAST program and the learning garden at Lucy Herring School. We’ll do a sing-along and ‘sign-along’ of garden-themed songs with an ASL instructor.
Local environmental organizations will set up tables with information about their work and tips for gardeners, and there may be baked goods and/or plants for sale.” When the program ends at 11 a.m., stroll guides will be handed out and people may begin perusing the gardens.
Featured this year are a wide variety of gardens, showcasing many alternatives to conventional lawns. They are adorned with water features, works of art, trellises and quirky garden sheds. Gardeners will be available to chat about their work.
Laura Ruby, founder of YummyYards, a garden consulting and landscape company, will be on the tour this year. “Diversity in systems is crucial for a thriving ecosystem,” she says. “Our half-acre garden is home to culinary and medicinal herbs, native flowers, trees and shrubs, fruit shrubs and bushes, raised veggie beds and cut flowers, such as dahlias and zinnias. We believe in form and function. I want a pollinator habitat that is also edible to humans and is beautiful. Garden tours are a wonderful way for people to learn and share the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ of what they are doing. I always tell my students to visit as many gardens as possible; there is always so much to learn from each other!”
Ethnobotanist David Cozzo will also have his garden, which prioritizes regional edible and medicinal plants, on the tour. “The hierarchy, from top to bottom, goes: an edible landscape, medicinal plants, a pollinator and bird-friendly space and pretty stuff we like,” he says. “There is also a small bog and an area with wetlands plants.”
This year’s theme, “If You Grow It, They Will Come,” offers the opportunity for onlookers to see how unconventional lawns benefit the environment. “Stroll-goers will see many yards where native plants and edibles have replaced lawn, a practice that’s increasingly advocated to create more habitat for pollinators and birds,” Rubin says. This WAGS event is intended to inspire the community to protect the delicately dense WNC ecosystem, one garden at a time.
Lucy Herring School is located at 98 Sulphur Springs Road, West Asheville. For more information, visit WestAshevilleGardens.com. Hannah Van Vlack is a senior at Western Carolina University studying Writing and Editing in Professional Environments and Music.
