Several of Seattle's proudest neighborhoods boast dedicated gardeners as residents, and these neighborhoods open up for public tours once a year. You can visit with the gardeners to find out their secrets as you walk from house to house. These include the Phinney Neighborhood Association, the Snohomish Garden Club, Wallingford, and the Plant Amnesty Belltown Gardens tours. The Belltown Gardens tours primarily feature wildflowers in protected settings, while the Wallingford and Phinney tours feature cacti, vines, and other succulent plants. The Snohomish tour varies by property owner.
Puget Sound and the surrounding Pacific coast teem with islands, and several of these islands are home to some of the most striking garden tours in the area. One of the most breathtaking elements of the island tours is the sheer variety of gardens, with shoreline gardens close to formal and casual settings. Whidbey Island and Vashon Island are two of these islands. Vashon Island also has an art center that offers seminars, as well as a lavender farm. Gig Harbor and the Olympic Koi, Goldfish and Water Garden Club offer this combination of the conventional garden and the wonders of the sea. The island gardens center on wooded areas (fir and cedar, for the most part) broken by meadows with wildflowers. The Olympic Koi, Goldfish and Water Garden Club focuses on the koi and goldfish ponds, surrounded by indigenous meadows and wildflowers.
The Federal Way Gardens offer several tours throughout the year. In May, they host the "Buds and Blooms" tour, and in July, they host a summer symphony concert. The gardens are open year-round to the public. While several varieties of flowers are featured, the focal point is the Rhododendron Gardens.
These clubs offer member gardeners the chance to come in and cultivate a compelling landscape, and their annual tours are breathtaking. The West Seattle Garden Club is particularly highly regarded, and the Woodinville Garden Club, Georgetown Arts and Gardens and Bainbridge are three other associations with a wide variety of designs for the gardening enthusiast. All of these gardens vary in their offerings, depending on the property owner's preferences.
