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Visit
a Special Garden
One of the outstanding hosta display gardens in the world is located in
Bellville, Ohio.
Shirley and Van Wade, owners of the Wade & Gatton Nursery, have
gathered an enormous collection of hosta species
and cultivars to display in their gardens—a feast for any gardener’s eyes!
Their display gardens provide valuable educational information about the
characteristics of most registered and even unregistered varieties—showing
what each cultivar can do under ideal growing conditions. Serious hosta gardeners should allow at least ½ - 1 full day
to see the gardens. They have an
extensive nursery of plants, trees and shrubs for sale as well. Closed on Sundays, the
Nursery is located at 1288 Gatton Rocks Road, Bellville, Ohio 44813.
Their telephone number is 419-883-3191.
Bob and Becky call this the Mecca of Hosta Gardens!
The Whitmores have had opportunities to visit St.
Louis’s Missouri Botanical Gardens several times in the past 4
years after son David and family moved to Texas.
This garden is just off the interstate highway they take to Texas.
The extensive variety of garden displays is more than one can handle in
one day. An outstanding educational
program and center, a good restaurant, and a quality gift shop just add to a
visit to the rich display of gardens. Becky
believes their Japanese Garden is one of the best they have seen in this country
and certainly in the Midwest. Good
motels are nearby, making this a great weekend trip for gardeners at almost any
season of the year.
Bob and Becky have discovered that their membership in the Missouri Botanical
Gardens carries with it not only free admission for the several visits we make
there each year, several informational publications each year, and a discount at
the gift store but it also provides
reciprocity in the form of discounted or free admissions to other Botanical
gardens throughout the United States. Certainly
for gardeners who visit such sites, membership in your favorite or closest
botanical gardens might be a money-saving option to consider.
Since David moved to Dallas, Bob and Becky have visited some outstanding gardens
in that area: The Fort Worth Japanese Garden is
obviously well-funded and unique. Grandsons
Jonathan and Andrew loved feeding the koi there!
The Dallas
Botanical Gardens are well designed and extremely well maintained.
In 1998 we also made the trip to the San Antonio Botanical Gardens,
another fine quality botanical garden worthy of any gardener’s time.
The Parke County Whitmores actually met a staff member whose family lived
near Dogwood Farm back in Indiana. He
couldn’t have been more hospitable in showing fellow Hoosiers the areas where
they grow the plants for the display gardens.
A group of Hosta enthusiasts gathered under the direction of Ron and Linda
Williams for a trip to Italy
and France to tour the gardens there in June of 1998.
This trip proved to be ‘the dream of a lifetime.”
Good friends, great planning, incredible gardens, and lots of fun—what
more could anyone ask of a vacation! The
group visited as many a 5 gardens on some days.
We have included some of the photos taken on that trip on the 1999 Web
Site. Near
Tipton, MICHIGAN, are two outstanding
gardens to visit. Hidden Lake
Gardens is a 670 acre park surrounding Hidden Lake owned by Michigan State
University. It has both driving and
hiking trails as well as some outstanding plant collections.
Hosta Hillside is a collection of about 500 hosta cultivars, many of
which have been donated by Herb and Dorothy Benedict.
This garden is a project of the Michigan Hosta Society and is an
outstanding place to see the hosta introductions of Dr. Herb Benedict and
Pauline Banyai. Also near Hosta
Hillside is the Harper Collection of almost 600 dwarf and rare conifers. We spent an afternoon there this past October as a follow-up
to a much-too-brief visit during the national hosta convention in June of 1999.
You can see photos taken at Hidden Lake Gardens by going to Picture
Tour on our website. |
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