LAMBERTVILLE — The Kalmia Club is selling tickets to its June 9 Hidden Gardens of Lambertville Tour, providing visitors and locals alike with an opportunity to slip past locked gates and duck down secluded byways leading to 10 private paradises scattered throughout the historic river town.
The self-guided tour will take place between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., rain or shine, beginning at the historic pink Kalmia Clubhouse, 39 York St., Lambertville.
The 16th annual tour winds throughout the community during an all-day event “designed to educate, enliven and enthrall both aspiring gardeners and seasoned landscape artists,” said a spokeswoman.
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 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.
Kalmia Club is a member of the NJ 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 the state, the Kalmia Club celebrated the 100-year anniversary of the deeding of its clubhouse by the Quakers in 2010. The clubhouse is on the NJ Register of Historic Places and the National Register of Historic Places.
Tickets are 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; and Bucks Ice Cream & Expresso Bar, 25 Bridge St., Lambertville.
Advance tickets are $15 and day of tour, $20.
The annual tour raises money for community service and scholarships sponsored by the women’s nonprofit civic organization. For info and photos of previous tours, visit www.kalmiaclub.org. For tickets, e-mail [email protected], or call 609-397-1447.