June 25-26 Pella Garden Tour to Benefit Nicaraguan Children

The Van Klompenburg vegetable garden, 

part of the Gateway to Hope Garden Tour, 

features raised beds, a drip irrigation system, 

and arches for mounting bird netting and row covers.

A June 25 and 26 Pella garden tour offers a wider range of attractions for visitors than a typical walk-through garden tour. With scheduled events for kids, for flower gardeners, and for vegetable gardeners, it has a little something for everyone. Gardens are open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, June 25, with many scheduled events throughout the day. They are also open from 1 to 4 p.m. on Sunday afternoon for a beautiful afternoon stroll.


Called “Gateway to Hope Garden Tour,” it offers that gateway—attendance at a week-long arts camp—to children from the poorest-of-the-poor neighborhoods near Chinandega, Nicaragua. The tour is sponsored by Friends of Chinandega, a ministry of Faith Christian Reformed Church of Pella.

Featured gardens are:

 

• Van Klompenburg Gardens. 599 228th Place. An engineer’s vegetable garden with raised beds, irrigation, and row covers. Also a flower-lover’s perennial garden.
• Vue Garden. 2209 West Washington Street. A huge Hmong vegetable garden, known for its immaculate upkeep and Asian vegetables.
• Burg Garden. 509 Liberty. A veteran gardener’s vegetable garden featuring heirloom tomatoes and traditional North American vegetables.
• Kuyers Garden. 506 Liberty. A gracious backyard garden with a patio, flowering shrubs, iris, peonies, and more.
• Groenenboom & Kreykes Gardens. 1115 East Seventh Street & 17 Jackson.  A two-for-one tour of adjacent gardens, each with a water feature.
• Faith Church Community Gardens. Corner of University and E. 12th Street. A flower garden maintained by church members and individual vegetable garden plots for interested Pella residents. On Saturday, a garden tour tea, a retail shop, information about the Nicaraguan children’s arts camps, and supervised children’s lawn games are also offered here. Retail shop products include plants, Nicaraguan/U.S. garden art, cookbooks, Nicaraguan handcrafts, and almond tea rings. Joel Huyser, missionary in Nicaragua, will be available here for conversation with adults and children about Nicaragua, the arts camps, and creating cross-cultural relationships like the Friends of Chinandega.

Visitors may tour the gardens in any order from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, June 25, or they may choose to follow a sequence of scheduled events. In the event of rain, all scheduled events will be available under shelter at the scheduled time and place.

Children’s events include painting a planter between 10 and 11 a.m. at the Burg Garden, 509 Liberty, and potting a plant in this container at the Kuyers Garden, 506 Liberty between 11 a.m. and noon. Sessions are led and plants provided by De Bloemenhof staff. Pots are donated by R-Del Distributing of Pella. In addition, each garden will have a Kids Corner open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

For flower garden enthusiasts, at 10 a.m., Carol Van Klompenburg leads a walk through her perennial beds (599 228^th Place), talking about steps in transitioning them from flower gardens to landscaped design. At 11 a.m., John Kuyers hosts a session at 506 Liberty on choosing perennials and flowering shrubs for a full season of color.

At noon Nadine Rozenboom teaches visitors to create a bouquet in a teacup at the Groenenboom gardens (1115 East 7^th Street). Cut flowers are provided for the bouquets. Visitors may provide their own cup or mug, or purchase one on site.

At 1 p.m., Loren Kreykes and Larry Groenenboom explain how to build an outdoor water feature. Their back to back gardens at 1115 East 7^th Street and 17 Jackson Street both have water features. Loren will also demonstrate how to braid a tree, as he has done with an ornamental tree in his yard.

Vegetable gardeners can learn about raised beds, plastic mulch, and drip irrigation from  gardening engineer Marlo Van Klompenburg (noon, 599 228^th Place); about raising tomatoes from veteran vegetable gardeners Mike Burg and Bill Kimble (1:00 p.m., 509 Liberty); and about raising south-east Asian vegetables from professional Hmong gardener May Vue, assisted by horticulturalist Neal Van Veen,  (2 p.m., 2209 Washington.) They can conclude their day with a seminar by cookbook author and health consultant Sheryl Ellinwood on easy ways to add greens to your diet (3 p.m., 2209 Washington).

Suggested minimum donation for the tour is $10, and donation boxes will be available at each site. For a tax-deductible donation, checks may be written to Faith Christian Reformed Church: Gateway to Hope Tour. Tour guides and maps will be available at each location, along with tour discount coupons for purchases at both Pella Nursery and Dutch Meadows Landscaping.