The 11th annual Malibu Garden Tour benefiting the Malibu Garden Club takes place May 3, and will feature five local home gardens.
Each year, several Malibu residents allow the garden club to include their private gardens on the tour, and the club gives unique names to each individual garden, as well as describes the design and evolution of the space.
Featured this year is the Nirvana garden, of which the main entrance is a gate designed around antique temple doors from Thailand. In addition to several terraced flowerbeds, vegetable plants, herbs and fruit trees, there is a koi pond and views of the ocean from several vantage points.
Stories are told behind some of the gardens, such as Grandma’s Cottage, which, Rita Simpson of Terra Sancta Landscape Design, said she designed as a place where her client’s son could “play ball, Grandma could have a garden and Grandpa could barbecue.”
The McCormick Garden, designed by Rodgers Weld of Fernwood Plants, Topanga, features many cacti and succulents, some of which are rare, and the Dragonflies & Sycamores garden contains, as its name suggests, sycamore trees and a grassy pond where dragonflies fly about. The history of the Rindge family is found at The Red Barn Garden, designed and maintained by Laura Knauss and Garden Visions, Inc., where succulents were originally planted for soil and slope retention, along with water conservation.
The full descriptions and history of the five gardens on tour can be found in the brochure given to attendees.
The $25 tickets for the tour are tax deductible. More information and tickets can be obtained by calling 310.457.8494 or 818.865.6059. The Malibu Garden Club is a nonprofit organization founded in 1957. Its mission is to help in the beautification of Malibu. Each year the club gives scholarships to students of horticulture, landscape architecture or related fields.