By Dawn Marie
Kalmia Club Hosts 16th Annual Hidden Gardens of Lambertville Tour
LAMBERTVILLE, N.J. – The Kalmia Club is now selling tickets to its June 9 Hidden Gardens of Lambertville Tour, providing visitors and locals alike with a unique opportunity to slip past locked gates and duck down secluded byways leading to 10 private paradises scattered throughout the historic river town.
The 16th annual HiddenGardens of Lambertville Tour winds throughout a quaint HunterdonCounty community during an all-day event designed to educate, enliven and enthrall both aspiring gardeners and seasoned landscape artists.
The self-guided tour takes place Saturday, June 9, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., rain or shine, beginning at the historic pink Kalmia Clubhouse, 39 York St., Lambertville. Advance tickets are $15 and day of $20. The annual tour raises money for community service and scholarships sponsored by the women’s non-profit civic organization. For info and photos of previous tours, visit www.kalmiaclub.org. For tickets, email [email protected], or call 609-397-1447.
Tickets provide access to 10 gardens, many complemented by sculptures, themed art and an array of blooming perennials, annuals, shrubs and trees as well as edibles, berries and herbs. This year’s tour features a classic English shade garden; a Tibetan sculpture of Bodhisattva gazing across a rectangular pool with a continuously overflowing ceramic vase with a Lotus and a Cyperus papyrus; a solar water fountain; a half-human, half-plant creature representing an ancient figure of fertility and nature; and an intriguing backyard plot built around creative reuse of valuable materials.
Featured plots in the 2012 Hidden Gardens Tour include:
Elegant gardens surrounding an historic home complemented by several outdoor living spaces featuring shade gardens with spectacular texture and color, a Dana Stewart bronze sculpture, 1880s iron fence, fountains-turned-planters and a massive arbor defining an outdoor room complete with crystal chandelier.
A California-style hardscape patio design sporting numerous small gardens enhanced by Tuscan Italian pots, container plantings and a custom-built, architecturally dazzling mahogany wood fence flanked by sun and shade gardens under a canopy of neighboring sugar maples and white ash trees.
A clever, child- and eco-friendly garden gracing a stately Victorian home that features a rock-walled section embellished by fresh plantings and shrubs along with a patch of creeping myrtle, coreopsis, pincushion flowers, annuals and a host of blooming perennials.
The HiddenGardens tour takes place on Second Saturday, celebrated in Lambertville and near-by New Hope in Bucks County, PA as a day of fun, food and the arts, when local stores and galleries remain open late. Both communities are “day-trip” worthy and offer a wide selection of restaurants.
Kalmia Club is a member of the N.J. State Federation of Women’s Clubs and the General Federation of Women’s Clubs. The garden tour is the organization’s largest fundraiser of the year.
One of the oldest continuously running women’s clubs in N.J., the Kalmia Club in 2010 celebrated the 100 year anniversary of the deeding of its clubhouse by the Quakers. The clubhouse is on the N.J. Register of Historic Places and the National Register of Historic Places.
Garden tour tickets are also available at the following locations:
Blue Raccoon Home Furnishings, 6 Coryell St., Lambertville
City Market, 74 N. Main St., Lambertville
Homestead Market, 262 N. Main St., Lambertville
Bucks Ice Cream & Expresso Bar, 25 Bridge St., Lambertville.

