Come on a pocket garden tour in Portsmouth

And reward your senses.

Jim Cerny, story and photographs

The South Church's 21st annual pocket garden tour in Portsmouth was held on the weekend of June 18-19, starting with the Church's own flowers, traversing eleven gardens, and ending at the Weeks Brick House in Greenland! This year it was impractical to walk the tour as it jumped from the South Church in downtown Portsmouth, to the South and Union Street neighborhoods, then stepped through the Thaxter and Middle Road neighborhoods, to end near Spinney and Middle Roads.

I confess to being too lazy to keep my own garden. And to tease gardeners I've been known to say, "if you see one flower you've seen them all!" But I actually take gardens seriously and enjoy photographing the beauty created by others, with a special interest in garden objects and sculpture. The following selections from this year's tour are arranged in three categories without trying to maintain a sequence through the gardens.

Flowers …


Coreopsis grandiflora inside the iron fence at the South Church.



Orange lily.



Purple clematis.



Primrose.



Caladium.

Unidentified – flower or grass?



Dahlias against a white picket fence.



Purple iris.


Sculpture and objects …


Reflecting ball.



Girl flutist.



Winged girl statue.

Boy with seahorse (not shown).



Metal robin sculpture on the edge of a bird bath.



Female bronze nude sculpture.

Male head in concrete.



Ceramic red jug with water bubbler.



Bronze stag, detail.

Bronze crane.



Sun rays sculpture



Stylized metal dog (I think).

Stuffed bear enjoying a garden.



Very stylish plastic "English" rain barrel.

Artists …

Art was integrated with the garden experience, with several musicians and a painter.


Denise Brown working on a watercolor, as she does at one pocket garden each year.



Detail of the watercolor in progress.




See these related Rye Reflections articles on touring gardens:



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July, 2010



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