Sunday, July 11- The Saratoga County Soroptimist chapter puts on a "Secret Garden Tour" each year. It's a great way to get behind the scenes of some homes that you've admired and compare their gardening skills (or their gardener!) to your own. This year, one of the public gardens included Yaddo, the artists' retreat near the grandest entrance to Saratoga Springs. The rose garden looked very well kept and was a reminder to me that I will never be able to keep up with a formal style garden. As for the private gardens, one could see that the current trend of inside/out living was in play as several homes had very comfortable outdoor furniture to enable the enjoyment of their gardens. I did see a couple of varietals of ligularia, some jack-in-the-pulpit, ginger, solomon's seal, and false solomon's seal.
Most of the gardens had water features and mostly were well done, very impressive. The most amazing one ran as a stream from the top of a hillside, splashing and crashing into a very nice pool at the bottom. In short, I recommend this tour to get some plant and garden ideas, as well as some ideas to spruce up your castle. See you next year!
