A garden tour for a good cause

Jill Severn

On Sunday, June 22, the Thurston County League of Women Voters is sponsoring a tour of six local gardens, all tended by democracy-loving gardeners. All six gardens are the work of their owners — DIY gardens full of the idiosyncrasies, surprises, and delights of devoted amateurs. 

 All these gardens are works in progress, and in a planning meeting for this event, some of the gardeners expressed a bit of angst about showing their imperfections.

“For 16 years I lived in a condo and gardened in pots, and I’ve only been in this house for two years!” said one. But she and others, including me, have agreed to share our homemade, well-loved gardens to help raise money for the League. 

There’s a lot of variation among us: One describes her garden as Japanese in style, with a Chinese bridge over a rock river; another, on a third of an acre, says hers includes vegetables, fruits, flowers, herbs, and several tea plants for producing oolong tea. A third gardener says his is a mix of food and flowers set beneath the trees, with caged rabbits and chickens. 

Then there’s this one: “a variety of native and nonnative mature plants, many gifts from friends, a small stream and goldfish pond surrounded by ferns, a few fruit trees and raised beds for vegetables. It is messy and that is how I like it,” says the gardener. 

Then there’s mine, which will almost certainly be the smallest of the six. 

At the end of this rainbow tour is a gardening pot of gold: a stroll through the Panorama Pea Patch, a 4-acre site with the full range of garden talent on display — from vegetable growers to creators of rose bowers to apiarists tending bee hives. 

The event will conclude with herbal mocktails at the Panorama Pavilion. 

Gardens are meant to be shared. And seeing other people's gardens is truly the most effective and inspiring way to expand our vision of what a garden can be, what plants can do, and how close a garden can be to fine art and fine dining. 

In this case, looking at other people’s gardens — and paying a $25 registration fee — can also help shore up democracy. 

The League of Women Voters is, as its website declares, a “nonpartisan, grassroots organization working to protect and expand voting rights and ensure everyone is represented in our democracy.” 

It was founded in 1920 when women won the right to vote, and its original purpose was to provide civic education and voter registration for newly enfranchised women.

Today, League chapters all over the country still do civic education and voter registration. They also research topics of both national and local concern, and publish studies that promote informed conversation and debate. After careful study and documentation, League members vote to take positions on some of those issues. 

Like all Leagues, our Thurston County chapter does not endorse or contribute to political candidates. It does, however, host candidate interviews on local television so that voters make their own decisions. 

The League also continues to be a strong advocate for civic education for both kids and adults.* 

Just this spring, on April 17, the national League took a historic step when its national leadership declared our country to be in a constitutional crisis, and called for a national nonviolent campaign to defend the country from the Trump administration’s flagrant disregard for congressional authority, governmental checks and balances, and Supreme Court orders. 

For the League of Women Voters, which has nourished a nonpartisan tradition of support for basic civic sanity for over 100 years, these are troubled times. Local League members feel compelled to work harder to spread facts, including basic facts about how American government is supposed to work, and why it can’t work without active, informed citizens. League members devote a lot of hours and resources to this work. 

But in their spare time, many of them garden their hearts out. It helps them stay calm when the national news is frightening and infuriating. 

You might come to this garden tour because you want to see gardens, or because you want to support the Thurston County League of Women voters, or both.

You can also not come to this garden tour and donate to the League. All of that can be done at the Thurston League’s website. When you register, you’ll receive a map and addresses for all the tour sites. The tour begins at 12:30 p.m., and will end at Panorama at about 4 p.m.. 

*Full disclosure: I am not a League member, but the Washington State League hired me to write elementary and secondary school civic education textbooks called “The State We’re In, Washington: Your Guide to State, Tribal and Local Government." I do not receive any royalties or income from their sale.  

Jill Severn writes from her home in Olympia, where she grows vegetables, flowers, and a small flock of chickens. She loves conversation among gardeners. Start one by emailing her at  jill@theJOLTnews.com