Blooming time comes to Mountain Home

Flowers and blooms of various types and fragrances greeted visitors participating in this year's home and garden tour on Saturday. Six homes were featured during this year's tour, which marked its 16th anniversary in Mountain Home.

Floral blooms of various colors, styles and fragrances greeted visitors in the Mountain Home area on Saturday as local families opened their homes and yards during the 16th Annual Garden Tour.

Sponsored by the Mountain Home Garden Club and Beta Zeta Civic Club, the yearly gardening event featured an assortment of gardening "how-to's" along with a few "what not to do's."

The garden tour showed people cost-effective ways to tackle landscaping challenges without breaking their wallets, regardless of their yard's size and shape.

Jacelyn Suprise, 6, enjoys the fragrance of petunias growing in Giesla Light's yard.

John and Lauice Bentz have steadily made improvements to their yard since they bought their home on Amber Drive eight years ago. They turned their front corner into a perennial flower bed, which features blooms from early spring to late autumn. Climbing roses and other plants flower along another side of the house with a separate section dedicated to attracting butterflies and hummingbirds.

Two large Green Ash trees keep their property cool and shady against the summer heat with outdoor benches providing outdoor recreation in their own version of what they call "sitting gardens."

John and Sher Sellman's home at the corner of East 8th North Street and Sand Pebbles Lane features a blend of xeriscaping and energy conservation.

"We designed a passive solar house," they said. "Our landscaping is integral... as we built berms to keep the warmth or coolness in the house according to the season."

Their xeriscaping features include a blend of drought-resistant plants, including flowers in patriotic colors of red, white and blue on the east side of their property and a blue and gold theme in honor of Idaho on the west side.

Both avid golfers, the Sellmans "imperfect, funky yard" even includes a chipping and putting green off their back patio.

Meanwhile, Wade and Sue Baumgardner chose to include aspects of the ocean in their yard design on North 6th East Street.

"We were both raised close to the ocean and beaches, so many of our items are related to the coast," they said.

In addition to a small waterfall, their backyard creation includes seagulls, pelicans and a tiny lighthouse. They found many of these trinkets searching shops and beaches along the Oregon coast.

With a formal landscape in front, Gisela Light turned another stretch of her long, narrow yard on East 8th North Street into what she called ever-evolving project that included a container garden. Elsewhere in her yard, she added several seating areas that include places for people to enjoy her pond, which comes complete with a waterfall.

"This whole setting is for summer living and great entertainment for its uniqueness," she said.

While some people have spent the past few years perfecting their yards, others like Mickey Cantrell have devoted their lives to nurturing their outdoor version of paradise. Work on Cantrell's garden on West Beaman Road started 45 years ago with various perennial flowers continuing to bloom from early spring to late fall.

Her interest in gardening began when she would garden with her mother. It's this passion she's passed along to her own children and grand children, who devote countless hours helping her maintain her garden.

During this year's tour, people had a chance to stop by the People's Garden Initiative on South Haskett Street. Billed as a "must-see" garden by this year's organizers, the garden "is an example of what inspiration and cooperative effort can build," they said.

An effort launched by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, hundreds of volunteer hours went into producing this garden. The initiative was launched in 2010 with students at Richard McKenna Charter High School joining others in the community to clear the land for 17 garden beds, including two handicap accessible beds.

"Each bed is designed to work independently so you can control the amount of water that is needed for your particular crop," garden officials said. They hope this community garden will help students in the Mountain Home area to not only learn the basics of gardening but the math, science and history that teachers can easily integrate into their lessons.

"Overall, this is a community project with all community members' interests at heart," officials said.

After the tour, participants gathered at the Basque Park near the city's downtown area for this year's social. In addition to bidding on different garden-related items and other prizes, guests watched as Trish Hendrickson from the city parks and recreation showed them how to turn a used wooden pallet into a small garden that stands upright when complete.

Proceeds from the event will benefit Mountain Home High School's art program as well as the People's Garden Initiative.