Fall home and garden tours provide that rare opportunity to walk through other people's yards, on patios and porches to see how they create their own private paradises. While pool, patio, home and garden shows are a great place to learn about new products, attend seminars and see the work of local landscape designers, it's the home and garden tours that really put you right where you want to be: in the backyards and front yards of home dwellers and owners like yourself. Since they live in your region, you get to see up-close how others deal with challenges like climate, soil, native plants and drought.
Martinez Home and Garden Tour
October 10, 2009, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.Sponsored by the Martinez, California, Historical Society. Victorian, Tudor Revival, Mission Revival and Arts and Crafts styles are represented on this tour of seven historic homes. Highlights include naturalist John Muir's 1882 Italianate Victorian, including parts not normally open to the public; and two other Victorian-style homes.
Information: (925) 228-8951
Historic Ellicott City's Decorator Show House
September 19 - October 18Tour of the historic Walnut Grove stone home, built in 1780, featuring 20 design spaces.
5192 Sheppard Lane, Ellicott City, Maryland
(410) 461-6908.
Ticket information
Charleston Fall Tours of Homes and Gardens
September 24 - October 25, 2009The Preservation Society of Charleston’s 33rd Annual Fall Tours of Homes and Gardens. This five-week event in South Carolina features intimate gardens and architecturally significant private homes, including Colonial and Georgian, on historic streets. More than a dozen separate tours, including some evening tours.
Ticket information.
Chesapeake Homearama 2009
October 3-18, 2009Explore 12 custom showcase homes in a Chesapeake, Virginia, neighborhood designed to take you back to Main Street America, with porches and sidewalks that create a sense of community.
Directions
Phone: (757) 420-2434
The White House Fall Garden Tours
October 16 & 17, 2009 Yes, that White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.Washington DC
Included in the autumn tour of The White House gardens will be a view-from-a-distance of the new Kitchen Garden.
More information, including tickets, tour times and rules.
San Francisco Victorian Alliance Annual Tour
October 18, 2009, 1-5 p.m.The Victorian Alliance of San Francisco will host its annual house and garden tour, featuring San Francisco's Eureka Valley. Ticket order form
Fullerton Arboretum's 5th Annual Haunted Garden
Friday October 24 & Saturday October 25Bats and bullfrogs, vampires and vermin, ghosts, ghouls and goblins, everything that goes “bump” in the night will be lurking along hidden trails of this family-friendly tour in Fullerton, California. Count Dracula's vampires will guide guests down the garden paths into the deciduous forest where they will witness a cemetary come alive with witches, skeletons and assorted ghouls. After a spooky trip through the creepy garden paths, visitors are greeted at the Haunter's Ball with a “treat” and Halloween fun.
Check website for tour times.
San Miguel de Allende Biblioteca House and Garden Tour
© 2009 Biblioteca Publica de San Miguel de Allende
Ongoing tour, most Sundays.
One of the most popular attractions in the beautiful Mexican town of San Miguel de Allende. House and gardens featured on the weekly tours are different each week, and include everything from Colonial mansions to tiny adobe casas, and newly built homes to artists' retreats.
Information: 152-4987.
One of the most popular attractions in the beautiful Mexican town of San Miguel de Allende. House and gardens featured on the weekly tours are different each week, and include everything from Colonial mansions to tiny adobe casas, and newly built homes to artists' retreats.
Information: 152-4987.
