Happy Friday GPODers!

Today we’re wrapping up our incredible week on the 2024 Bitterroot Secret Garden Tour™. I want to start by giving a big shout out and thank you to Kielian DeWitt for offering to share this incredible tour with us, and for sending over all of the beautiful photos and insightful information on the gardens. Appropriately, we’re wrapping up the week in her amazing home garden.

But before we dive into Kielian and her magical garden, I wanted to share a bit more information about the tour itself and the impact it has had on the Bitterroot Valley community. Kielian provided some great highlights that put into perspective how impactful it can be to gather the community around gardens. In the past ten years they have:

• Raised over $120,000 to donate to Valley charities
• Donated to 11 different Valley non-profits
• Showcased more than 50 gardens; with only four repeats!
• Recruited over 200 volunteers
• Enjoyed over 3,000 new and repeat garden visitors

Hopefully this week has encouraged you to seek out a local garden tour. If there aren’t any currently around you, maybe get some plant-loving friends together and encourage each other to share your gardens more often… you really don’t know what a small idea can turn into when the community comes together. But enough from me, let’s dive into Kielian’s garden:

As a young girl in Colorado, Kielian remembers her mother and grandmother laughing in delight at seeing the tender young shoots of spring, listening to them marvel at summer’s boisterous growth and sharing in the experience and joy of fall’s bountiful harvest. From those earliest memories her interest grew into a lifetime of gardening design, weed-pulling and the love of garden artistry. Kielian has been honored 3 times over several years in 2 major gardening magazines and was awarded winner of the 2018 Gardenista Amateur Garden of the Year for her entry, “Floral Serendipity in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana.” Husband, Chuck, has always been a willing accomplice in charge of weeds, watering and (ahem) limiting garden ‘expansion.’

Their amazing property includes extensive flowerbeds surrounding the house, incorporating a multitude of flowers, shrubs and vines (as many as she can encourage to thrive in our Montana climate) and are complemented by established and colorful pocket gardens of herbs and vegetables, a boneyard, pumphouse and Harry Potter area (where anything black, white or weird is encouraged to grow). The Meandering Meadow, a naturalistic garden surrounding the pond, portrays a valiant but stunningly beautiful battle against weeds, gophers and voles.

Formerly, the Dewitts did 90% of the work in their gardens but currently have the help of good friends Charlene and Sarah, and Garett who provides the heavy lifting and irrigation acumen.

Pink roses, snow-in-summer ground cover (Cerastium tomentosum, Zones 3–7), astilbe and a late-blooming peony provide color and drama to the meandering path.

The Greenhouse patio holds court to a persimmon tree (a fig, dragonfruit, and lychee tree are around the corner) and pots abound with annuals. Clematis, lupine, golden oregano (Origanum vulgare ‘Aureum’, Zones 5–9) and potentilla fill in the background.

A wildflower meadow on the edge of the pond accents a stunning view of the Bitterroot Mountain range.

Veronica, calendula, phlox, hosta, dianthus, barberry, Double Play® Gold spirea (Spiraea japonica ‘Yan’, Zones 3–8), Bobo® hydrangeas (Hydrangea paniculata ‘ILVOBO’, Zones 3–8), foxglove, Tiger Eyes® sumac (Rhus typhina ‘Bailtiger’, Zones 3–8), and two clematis (Clematis ‘Jackmanii’, Zones 4–10 and an unknown pink variety) spill over one another.

‘Fascination’ Culver’s root (Veronicastrum virginicum ‘Fascination’, Zones 3–8) lines the newly planted thyme lawn.

Hollyhocks, masterwort (Astrantia major, Zones 4–7), echinacea, delphinium, monkshood (Aconitum napellus, Zones 3–8), a redtwig dogwood (Cornus sericea, Zones 2–7) trimmed into a tree and black snakeroot also know as black cohosh (Actaea racemosa, Zones 3–8) create a colorful vertical wall in front of the greenhouse.

Hollyhock, phlox, hydrangea, foxglove, delphinium and ‘Chardonnay Pearls’ deutzia (Deutzia gracilis ‘Duncan’, Zones 5–8) in the front bed.

Absolutely stunning, Kielian—and one final thank you for sharing these gardens! If you missed any of the beautiful gardens we toured this week, check them out below:

• A Nurseryman’s Expansive Garden
• Meticulously Maintained Urban Garden
• An Eco-friendly, Native Plant Garden
• The Alice in Wonderland Garden

Have a garden you’d like to share?

Have photos to share? We’d love to see your garden, a particular collection of plants you love, or a wonderful garden you had the chance to visit!

To submit, send 5-10 photos to [email protected] along with some information about the plants in the pictures and where you took the photos. We’d love to hear where you are located, how long you’ve been gardening, successes you are proud of, failures you learned from, hopes for the future, favorite plants, or funny stories from your garden.

Have a mobile phone? Tag your photos on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter with #FineGardening!

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