Grand Forks Horticultural Society to host annual garden tour, plant sale – Grand Forks Herald

GRAND FORKS – The Grand Forks Horticultural Society will host its 39th Annual Garden Tour and Plant Sale on Thursday and Saturday, July 20 and 22.

The event will feature nine gardens, including the North Dakota Museum of Art gardens that have been redesigned by Vincent Ames.

Tour hours are 4-8 p.m. Thursday, July 20, and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday, July 22. Pick up a map showing the garden locations at the Myra Museum at the Grand Forks Historical Society, 2405 Belmont Road.

All the gardens are in Grand Forks.

The plant sale will be conducted 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday.

A free will donation is requested for the tour and plants. Horticultural society t-shirts and sweatshirts will be available for sale.

As usual for this event, “plant doctors” — Carrie Knutson, NDSU Extension agent for Grand Forks County, and Cindy Filler, master gardener diagnostician — will be on hand to answer gardeners’ questions from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday at the Myra Museum. Gardeners are welcome to bring plants or pictures of plants, trees or shrubs to get advice about conditions that concern them.

Knutson, the agricultural and natural resources agent in the horticulture area at NDSU Extension, said this year’s gardening season has been “okay,” she said. “We could use more moisture, considering it’s been 90 degrees back in May.”

During the “plant doctor” sessions, Knutson said, the kind of questions gardeners and homeowners ask varies “depending on the weather and what’s going on in the environment.”

She typically sees people who want identification of unusual conditions or insects on plants or trees.

This summer, Knutson is fielding questions on conditions such as iron chlorosis, which affects trees, especially maple and birch, and “insect injury,” she said. She’s responding to inquiries about galls, abnormal plant growths caused by insects, mites, fungi, nematodes, bacteria and viruses.

Filler said the nine gardens featured on the tour are more than in past years.

“We want to showcase a variety of sizes and types of gardens … ,” she said. “Not everyone may like each yard, but they all have beauty in their own way. One (gardener) has added antique farm pieces to his yard and it adds so much.”

In selecting gardens for the tour, Filler said, “We look for variety.”