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Homes

Festival teaches gardening

By Times Staff Writer
Published April 1, 2005

Some come to stroll the banks of the Hillsborough River in historic Henry B. Plant Park; others search for some serious gardening bliss.

When the 2005 GreenFest kicks off tomorrow, gardening buffs - and legions of armchair wannabes - will have a chance to browse offerings from Central Florida growers and vendors hawking everything from antique garden art to day lilies.

In a sublime setting.

"It's the premier park in Tampa," says Mary Kay Ross, a Hillsborough County master gardener and landscape designer who co-founded the event eight years ago with good friend and fellow master gardener Mart Pieper.

Admission is free and includes a cornucopia of talks, workshops and demonstrations, including a lecture by Charlotte Frieze, garden editor of House and Garden magazine and author of books on zone gardening as well as Social Gardens: Outdoor Spaces for Living and Entertaining.

For those who haven't been, GreenFest calls for a straw hat, Bermudas and an hour or two to just roam and learn. It also calls for a pocket primer on the history of the riverfront Henry B. Plant Park, which receives the proceeds from the event.

The small park along Kennedy Boulevard dates back to Henry Plant himself, the Victorian-age railroad and steamship tycoon who courted guests at his adjacent Tampa Bay Hotel (now the University of Tampa) with a collection of exotic plants as well as a lush palm walk along the Hillsborough River.

According to the book If Our Hotel Could Talk, by Robin Robson Gonzalez (2005, Tampa Preservation Inc.) Plant's gardens featured roses, oleander, bamboo, papaya and mango trees, as well as peacocks and monkeys. Old postcards depict men in suits and bowler hats and women in flowing summer dresses strolling along the hotel's thickly lined palm-tree walk.

Whimsical garden stools and a statue of Plant's hunting dogs must have beckoned.

So, come stroll a spell, offers Mary Kay Ross, who's hoping the event will draw more visitors from the North Tampa and Brandon areas this year in addition to the usual South Tampa faithful.

All of the proceeds from GreenFest go back into restoration and preservation efforts at the historic park.

GreenFest runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Master gardeners will offer instructional talks both days.

Saturday: 10:30 a.m., rain barrel construction; 11:30 a.m., creating yard art; 1 p.m., Frieze; 3 p.m., pressing flowers. There is a $15 charge for pressing flowers. To sign up, contact Sherry Leffers, (813) 837-0131.

Sunday: 10:30 a.m., shade gardening; 11:30 a.m., secrets and shortcuts of master gardeners; 12:30 p.m., pruning; 1:30 p.m., orchids; 2:30 p.m., composting.

Also on the fun-things-to-do menu Sunday is the eighth annual Amaryllis Garden Club garden tour in New Suburb Beautiful. This neighborly fete offers a peek into some of the most charming gardens in South Tampa, typically the small and lovely kind tucked behind historic cottages and old Mediterranean homes.

Christened The Sunset Stroll, the tour, from 4 to 6 p.m., is a relaxed event where neighbors, friends and visitors gather for a glass of wine and a stroll through the featured gardens.

"New Suburb Beautiful prides itself on being a neighborly neighborhood. We have a Fourth of July parade, caroling at Christmas, an annual neighborhood garage sale," explains the tour committee chairwoman, Jane Hardin. "It's just a real good neighborhood that offers all the kinds of things we did growing up."

Hardin describes the tour, which blossomed out of an annual garden club cocktail party, as "low key," and a way for neighbors to sit around, sip a glass of wine and visit in each other's back yards.

This year's tour will feature four gardens and light refreshments.

All for six bucks.

One garden beckons visitors through a wrought iron gate into a tropical paradise lush with Xanadu, ginger, palms and banana trees, behind a 1926 Mediterranean home. The house features a summer kitchen, a fire pit, and a sculpture handcrafted in Bali.

A Georgian-style home includes a formal garden centered around a pond and waterfall, a bench quilted with confederate jasmine, as well as a profusion of milkweed, penta, and passion vine.

A 1924 arts and crafts style bungalow sets the scene for an English country garden, nestled between the carriage house and potting shed. Key lime trees and hot-pink bougainvillea lend the garden a tropical touch, while herb-filled window boxes and potted gardenia add scent.

The tour also boasts "one of the best front porches in South Tampa," in front of a traditional 1920s home. The back yard teems with tangerine tree, orchids and staghorn ferns, and has a fish pond hidden beneath a cluster of schefflera trees.

Tickets may be purchased the day of the tour at any one of the following addresses: 2422, 2430, 2506 or 2516 Sunset Drive.

[Last modified March 31, 2005, 08:54:10]