Living Arts of Tulsa is holding its 10th annual garden tour this weekend — Living with Art in the Garden.

The proceeds help the Myers Gallery, as well as contribute to art classes for adults and children. Their summer camps for children teach video, sculpture and performance arts.

At each of the four gardens there will be an artist on site displaying decorative pieces for your garden or outdoor entertaining space, and a Master Gardener to answer questions.

The garden I toured is at 5705 S. Birmingham in a subdivision near 61st Street and Harvard, close to Southern Hills Country Club. Homeowner and gardener Beth Teel retired from a career as a special education teacher and took up the family hobby of gardening.

“My parents and grandparents were big gardeners,” Beth said.

After Beth retired, her husband, Paul, suggested they take down the old chain-link fence and put in a garden shed. That was 15 years ago and together they have created a haven for plant lovers.

“Texture, color and what grows well is how I choose what to plant,” Beth said. “I add a lot of herbs mixed in with other plants. I like to put light and dark plants next to each other.”

Approaching the front entry, there is a perennial bed on one side of the driveway and a newly planted vegetable garden on the other. The fall vegetables include lettuce, spinach and fingerling potatoes.

Surrounding the entry there are several beds. Look for Japanese painted fern, hellebores, begonias, wire vine, mahonia, hinoki cypress, green giant arborvitae, deodar cedar and paperbark maple.

Both sides of the house have ribbons of garden. Look for hydrangeas in bloom, variegated sage, spirea, bee balm, artemisia, soft serve false cypress, stained glass hosta, and plum yew.

The entry into the back garden from the side yard is through an arbor that Paul built. You will immediately be impressed with the well-kept beds on both sides of the lawn.

“I like a tidy cottage look,” Beth said. “There are trailing herbs, rocks, coleus and potted plants in front of the tall shrubbery backdrop.”

In these beds look for black lace elderberry, a french-cut winter gem boxwood hedge, salvias, begonias and coleus.

“My grandmother always had a vase of coleus cuttings in the house that she grew into spring plants for the garden,” Beth said.

The garden beside the shed has a special feature. If you look up, you will see a gutter garden. Paul drilled holes in an 8-foot long piece of rain gutter that he hung along the roofline. After filling it with trailing plants, he attached a drip irrigation system to keep it growing over the summer.

Rhonda Steiner, who creates outdoor mosaic art, brought a few of her pieces to show us at the garden. They are all weather proof and ready to install.

 “Mosaics for outdoors are more challenging,” Steiner said. “You have to know what materials and which glue to use so the pieces hold together.”

A dozen artists’ work will be displayed at Southwood Landscape and Nursery, 91st and Lewis streets, including: Grant Smith, Donna Prigmore, Gina Dellinger, David Hoot, John Byrne, Josh Mars, Julie Thomas, Laurie Keeley, Leigh Standingbear, Linda Coward, Lisa Brownwood, Tana Van Cleave, Terri Higgs, Virginia Harrison and Yusuf Etudalye.

Come to get new ideas and art for your garden. Bring a camera!



My blog is http://allthedirtongardening.blogspot.com and my email is MollyDay1@gmail.com.