How does your garden grow? Town and Country Secret Garden Tour of the Milford Garden Club takes in everything from koi

By Frances Ruth Harris
MILFORD — The gardens are growing pretty well in Pike County, as participants in the 26th annual Town and Country Secret Garden Tour of the Milford Garden Club would testify. The July 14 tour featured exquisite flowers and vegetables in three Mill Rift properties and four Milford gardens.
Mill Rift wonders include a working organic farm and a garden complete with vegetables and two mature brown and white rabbits. Crops consisted of egg plant, tomatoes, onions, carrots, super snap peas, beans and mixed salad greens. Another Mill Rift property held a pond of over 100 koi and seventeen varieties of dahlia. Two of the Mill Rift gardens are over 35 years old.
The third Mill Rift property houses a pathway lined with hostas, foam flowers and ferns.
In Milford, beds of ornamental grasses and rock walls complete several hidden gardens. One rustic barn greets gardeners and bloom lovers. Garden arrangements offer water-wise arid landscaping with prickly tips. Another historic wonder offered a huge 100-year-old European copper beach tree complete with a stone statue of Aphrodite made of Imperial Carrera Marble from outside Florence, Italy where Michelangelo selected stone. The panther bench designed of black marble from Spain draws sighs of wonder.In another garden, free-range chickens embellish the beauty of a pole barn moved from New Milford, Conn. From Foxcroft Drive, to West Ann and Fifth Street and on to Foster Hill Road, lucky secret garden visitors saw visual rewards beyond measure.
Photos by Frances Ruth Harris.
For more photos visit pikecountycourier.com.