The Piedmont Master Gardeners’ Through the Garden Gate program returns this summer with intermittent “pop-up” garden tours emphasizing sustainability, based on the Eight Essential Elements of Conservation Landscaping developed by the Chesapeake Conservation Landscaping Council. Gardens on the tours will serve as outdoor classrooms, educating the public on how best management practices help preserve our region’s native plants, habitats and wildlife, all critical elements in protecting biodiversity and our watershed.

For the first round of tours, the Piedmont Master Gardeners are pleased to join the Virginia Cooperative Extension Master Gardener state office and the Governor of Virginia in recognizing National Pollinator Week, June 16-22, and the critical role pollinators play in our gardens, ecosystems and food production. The free tours will feature three pollinator and conservation landscaping demonstration gardens on Saturday, June 21, from 9 a.m. to noon. Tours will occur at the following sites approximately every hour on the hour, starting at 9 a.m.: 

• The Rose and Pollinator Gardens at The Center at Belvedere, 540 Belvedere Blvd. (off East Rio Road). Tours will focus on how to care for roses organically and how to grow native plants for pollinators in the landscape and in containers for small spaces, such as a balcony or patio. Visitors will learn pollinator-friendly practices that will help them design their own gardens to support pollinators and other wildlife.
• The Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital Demonstration Garden, 500 Martha Jefferson Dr., adjacent to the amphitheater near the Sentara Martha Jefferson Cancer Center. Visitors will learn to identify and care for mostly native pollinator plants that thrive in hot, sunny conditions, in an area that was backfilled with compacted red clay soil. They will also learn about how the garden has evolved over the years and about plantings for blooms in at least three seasons.
• The Bread & Roses Gardens at Trinity Episcopal Church, 1118 Preston Ave. These demonstration gardens highlight sustainable agriculture in an urban setting, using principles based on conservation landscaping and organic gardening, both in the vegetable gardens and in the native habitat landscape plantings. The area abounds with native and edible plants that have been carefully selected to provide food, shelter, and habitat for native insects and pollinators, including birds, while also providing healthy food for the community. This approach helps maintain habitat biodiversity and promotes pollination of food crops in the garden.

The tours will also demonstrate how sustainability extends to waste management. For example, rainwater is collected for use in the gardens. Compost bins are used to convert organic garden waste into valuable soil amendments, reducing the need for synthetic fertilizers. In addition, a vermicomposting system uses earthworms to break down organic matter into “compost tea.” This nutrient-rich tea enhances the quality of the compost and improves the health of the soil.

Over the years, the Piedmont Master Gardeners have partnered with The Center at Belvedere, Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital and the Bread & Roses ministry at Trinity Church to help develop and/or maintain these educational demonstration gardens.