Last Saturday, 34 Long Branch addresses opened their gardens to the public for the day. The Long Branch Garden Tour was back after a 2-year pandemic hiatus. Gardeners around our community spent long hours out in the garden before Saturday, getting everything just so.

People started coming just after 10 AM and we were talking to visitors all day. In early afternoon, my buddy Ted came by and we played a few tunes in the back yard. Nephew Luke, Steph and the kids came by too, and Luke even sat in on gut-bucket bass.

We enjoyed many visitors – it was steady all day. People were really enjoying the tour, and there were some very good gardeners in attendance. One person identified a problem with our Shishigashira Japanese Maple, which turned out to be spider mites. We took action the day after the tour, by spraying the leaves vigorously with a garden hose. We’ll do this every couple days for a while and that will hopefully keep the bugs at bay without using any poisons.

Having another garden tour in our community was particularly sweet after avoiding interaction with other people for so long. The weather was perfect and lots of people came by on bicycles – what a great way to experience the garden tour!