Vote the Garden Party Ticket

No, you won't see Katherine Mansfield or Vaclav Havel reading from their work, but you'll still have a grand time enjoying not one, but two, magnificent garden tours tomorrow. The OMNI Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology is at it again with the Annual Peace Gardens Tour, and the Flower, Garden and Nature Society of Northwest Arkansas is sponsoring its Through the Garden Gate tour. The combo will showcase a dozen area gardens for your viewing pleasure.

Start your Saturday at the Farmers' Market on the Fayetteville Square, where you can enjoy our new public gardens for free while browsing and buying local plants, flowers, produce, and crafts. Tickets for both garden tours will also be for sale there. The OMNI Peace Garden tour is from 10-3, and for $10 you can visit six gardens ranging from a tiny flower-filled downtown front yard, to a bamboo grove garden, to a country wildlife habitat. More details here.

Through the Garden Gate tickets will get you a tour of six gardens, including a French courtyard, a 100-year old residence, two naturalistic water features, several butterfly and bird havens, tropical vignettes, 10-feet tall tomato plants and several hundred roses. The fare is $15, you can ramble from 9-5, and a portion of the proceeds goes to support our fine Botanical Garden of the Ozarks.

So much to experience and do this weekend, but make time for our Garden Party. "You see, ya can't please everyone, so ya got to please yourself."