Gardeners prepare for 29th annual ‘Willow Garden Tour’

WILLOW — In the quiet of the Mailers’ garden a bee buzzes inside a bellflower, its shape amplifying the familiar drone of the bee’s wings.

Gardens are for lingering, Bill Mailer says.

In the spring when the garden is awakening, Bill and Kathy Mailer say they make a point to walk through the garden each morning and night.

“There’s always something new,” he said.

Walking through the garden Tuesday, Kathy exclaims over a Siberian iris that has unfurled since her last stroll along this path.

There are hundreds of varieties of flowers — peonies, roses, iris, lilies, thalictrum, monkshood, hostas and astilbes to name a few — along with many other unusual perennials that are interspersed throughout. Among Valley gardeners, Mailers garden is well-known for its English delphiniums.

Kathy said she started about 100 delphiniums from seed this year in various varieties, which she purchased from the Delphinium Society of England.

“They do so well here,” she said, standing in the garden dwarfed by rows of delphiniums heavy with buds. A few stalks are blooming now, but by the 29th annual Willow Garden Tour on July 26 she said she expects the whole lot to be in bloom.

The tour is from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., July 26. The group will meet and get directions for the tour at 9:45 a.m., at Willow Community Center, Mile 69.8, Parks Highway. Bring a sack lunch for the break planned from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

This is the Mailers’ fourth year participating in the tour, which for 22 years also has included Les Brake’s Coyote Garden. Coyote Garden also will host public tours from noon to 5 p.m., July 27. Tours Saturday are offered from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The garden is located at Mile 7.5, Willow Fishhook Road.

Of Alaska’s private gardens, Coyote Garden is arguably the best known nationally and internationally having been featured in an assortment of gardening TV shows, books and magazines.

Admission to Coyote Garden is a suggested $7 donation, which Brake gives to the Georgeson Botanical Garden in Fairbanks and Willow Garden Club.

Vignettes of color and texture

Many of the flowers in Kathy Mailers garden include stories about where they came from, or who gave the starts to her. For instance, the peonies out front are from her mother. She flew them back in her suitcase from California one year, Kathy says.

Others are gifts from fellow gardeners like Brake, who Kathy describes as a mentor.

The Mailers started clearing their land off Long Lake Road in 2000 and began building their home and a series of flower and vegetable gardens there in 2002.

Every year the garden beds are a little different. Each year she adds something new, she said.

“The paths keep getting smaller and smaller,” Kathy said.

Various beds designed in vignettes of color and texture ring the couple’s home and fill their yard from edge to edge. In the center is a collection of beds devoted to vegetables destined for the family dinner table. Most of the plants come back every year, but those are supplemented by hundreds annuals the Mailers start from seed in the greenhouse every February.

Kathy said says she has no idea how many varieties of flowers and plants are in the garden. A 2-inch thick binder with her notes about each plant’s success hints at the answer; there are easily hundreds of types of plants, she said.

Part of the fun of gardening for her is keeping that log with details of what thrived and what struggled, Kathy said. She described herself as the kind of gardener who finds things she likes and experiments.

“It’s all a learning experience,” Kathy said.

Although she is the garden’s chief caretaker, she is quick to say there would be no garden without Bill’s help. His handiwork is seen throughout the garden in its rock walls, raised beds and in the garden’s bed design, Kathy says.

For more information about the Willow Garden Tour, send e-mail to willowgardenclub@hotmail.com or call 495-6034.

For more information about Coyote Gardens, call 495-6525.

Contact Heather A. Resz at 352-2268 or heather.resz@frontiersman.com.