With fall on the horizon, now is a great time to get outside and admire your surroundings.
This year, the Placitas Garden Tour is slated for 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 11.
“The garden tour started over seven years ago, and I am the master gardener,” said Sandra Liakus, Placitas Garden Tour chair. “Some of my friends from Albuquerque and Corrales, both cities with garden tours, asked me if I would be interested in creating a garden tour for Placitas and that’s how this all started.”
The seven gardens featured this year are The Raven Hollow Garden, The Garden of Knowledge, The Forest Sanctuary, The Overlook Garden, The “Infinity” Garden, Planting for a Post-Wild New Mexico and The High Desert Oasis.
“I think they’re all beautiful so it’s hard to say which one stands out, as it depends on what you’re interested in,” Liakus said. “We can advise people if they come to our information tables on the day of the tour, or you can ask the greeters at the garden, about the gardens since we have some spectacularly landscaped gardens, and a variety of plants.”
Local artists will also be on site during the tour.
“There will be a lot of original art developed during the day of the tour and that will be on display at Placitas Community Library in the Gracie Lee Room,” Liakus said. “The library is the location for the food truck and there will be some music, and you can tour the gallery of garden art.”
Garden Tour. (Courtesy of Michael Payton)
There will be additional garden artwork that will be on display in the library that can also be purchased.
“It’s not really the fall, but it is late summer and that’s what makes it unique in that every year, the weather is slightly different,” Liakus said. “But what’s beautiful right now is as you’re driving to the garden, we have a lot of wildflowers, sunflowers and different grasses currently.”
This tour benefits the Sandoval Extension Master Gardeners and the Placitas Community Library.
“They are typically put to use by helping the community with garden education outreach and other types of garden education for the public,” Liakus said. “Each year we grow a little bit more and we are thinking of donating to an additional charity.”
Liakus is confident those that attend, will not come away disappointed.
“Well, it is just a fun time and everybody’s interested in looking at people’s gardens,” Liakus said. “There will be experts at the gardens you can talk to, not only the garden owners, and we will have a master gardener consulting arborist that you can talk to about your tree issues.”
Tickets start at $15 in advance and $20 the day of at placitasgardentour.com/2022-tickets.
