STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK
Typically, the traffic going through Bob and Criss Fallowfield’s garden oasis is comprised of bear and elk, who pick their way through lavender beds and apple trees that open up onto beds of hollyhocks, powder blue hydrangea and yellow clematis.
On Saturday hundreds of two-legged humans got to revel in the shady serenity of the Fallowfield’s own private Idaho during the Sawtooth Botanical Garden’s 22nd annual Garden Tour.
“It’s magical. There are surprises all over the place,” enthused tour volunteer Jane Beattie.
“Magical” was a word uttered often by some of the more than 600 people who turned out to tour nine gardens in the tour co-chaired by Mary Wilson and Cherie Kessler.
“A slight jump from 400 last year!” said an excited Kat Vanden Heuval, the garden’s executive director. “And last year’s attendance was about double of the year before.”
There were so many bikes and people wearing bicycle helmets plying Broadway Run and the bike path between the hospital and Gimlet that you would’ve thought Sun Valley was having its own Tour de France.
Those who weren’t on bikes strolled amiably from garden to garden, and many moseyed along river paths looking out onto the Big Wood River below Bart and Candy Burnap’s beautiful Gimlet home.
Others, like Marshall Meyer, took time to contemplate the gardens from swings, hammocks, stone benches and willow rocking chairs.
“The tour was so diverse,” said Carolyn Lloyd, who took every bit of the four hours provided to peruse all the nooks and crannies, all the birdhouses and sculptures. “It seemed to have it all—from Deanna Schrell’s vegetable garden to Gail Severn’s lovely sculpture garden.”
Criss Fallowfield, who works for Hospice of the Wood River Valley, handed out tart lemon cookies next to the large perennial garden that her husband, an attorney, built for her as a wedding gift years ago.
Criss has added wild irises and lily pads she’s collected on hikes. A stone otter lay on its back in the gurgling Cold Springs Creek, as a duck seemed to be in a holding pattern amidst live trout. A grinding wheel and stone sharpening wheel commanded a downward glance while a plethora of bird houses towering above blue delphinium and colorful paper lanterns begged viewers to look up.
The couple brought a chicken coop down from Smiley Creek and then added to it when they determined it was too small. Opposite it was an outdoor shower sits next to the hot tub on the Fallowfields’ expansive deck.
“She even adds to the interest by putting pots out for deadheading,” said Lisa Mary, pointing to an antique pot containing the pink heads of dead flowers.
While little things caught the eyes of those traversing through the Fallowfield garden, it was the big things in Tracy Johnson’s 2.5 acre spread off Broadway Run that had people talking.
“Wait until you see the hanging floating bed,” chorused Lisa Leach and Michelle Stennett.
“You’ve got to check out the bathtub!” said Judy Meyer.
The plantings outside the home, which blends in with the woods around it, were predominantly native with Rocky Mountain penstemon, vivid cutleaf daisies and Colorado blue columbine sprinkled amidst nat bunch grass bowing in a slight breeze.
A path through the woods wandered from one garden room to another. Camper chairs sat around an Airstream trailer in one. A fully plumbed outdoor bathtub shielded by hollyhocks and an accordion fence sat in another. And the outdoor bed everyone was talking about, complete with a wooden chandelier, sat in still another room.
The path spilled onto a deluxe cabin and an amazing party barn, complete with a Western-style bar and a giant metal fish hanging from the ceiling. And a real live elk had no problem bellying up to a magnificent life-sized metal sculptures of an elk, which was accompanied by an Indian warrior and stallions made of horseshoes, sockets, wrenches and other parts.
Ketchum artist Gabe Embler stood atop a ladder creating a rock sculpture between two trees in Sarah and David Woodward’s garden as a young woman played violin below.
Visitors strolled past a row of sculptures into Gail Severn’s expansive sculpture garden, which features sculptures created by world renowned sculptors like Rod Kagan and Gwynn Murrill available for purchase at her gallery.
Gail Severn happily strolled the grounds telling visitors like Peggy Grove and Heather Langley-Evans how she had topped a couple aspen trees and crowned them with birdhouses after two trees fell on her house during a windstorm.
The trees and shrubs are 35 years old; the flowers upwards of two years, she added.
Many of the tour-goers went home with a list of post-it notes for their own gardens.
“I’ve been on a lot of garden tours, but I’d have to say this was the best garden tour ever,” said Helen Stone, a long time volunteer with the Sawtooth Botanical Garden. “Every garden had its own individual personality and they were all wonderful.”
COMING UP: JOURNEY TO THE FAR EAST
The Sawtooth Botanical Garden will hold its Summer Gala, “Journey to the Far East,” at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 2.
The event—a fundraiser for the garden—will feature a Thai-inspired dinner, drinks, a silent auction, line dancing and Asian decorations galore. For information, call 208-726-9358 or go to www.sbgarden.org.