Mother Nature was in all her glory for the Dallas County Master Gardener Association, Inc. (DCMGA) 2022 Spring Garden Tour on Saturday, April 30, and Sunday, May 1–sunny, but not too warm. The six residential gardens and one school garden on the tour in the north and northwest area of Dallas County–Richardson, Addison, Carrollton, and Farmers Branch–matched her glory. After months (if not years) of preparing their gardens for the tour, our garden owners graciously welcomed over 750 visitors from 107 zip codes and an owl who delighted in seeing such an abundant and varied horticultural display. Many guests expressed their appreciation for the variety of garden experiences offered: large to small gardens, sunny to shade, colorful and vibrant, and calming and soothing.

Earth-Kind® principles and practices were demonstrated in each of the gardens. Tour attendees were able to witness first-hand how by using these practices, they can create their own unique garden while protecting the environment. Volunteers are available by contacting our award-winning Help Desk to answer any of your additional gardening questions.

Over 150 Dallas County Master Gardeners filled volunteer positions, including garden captains, sponsorship team members, educators, garden preparation teams, docents, runners, publicists, writers, Welcome Table greeters, and PlantTAGG® Assistants. These volunteers did a tremendous job welcoming and guiding guests and providing research-based horticultural information about the gardens and DCMGA.

In 2022, we enabled PlantTAGG®’s technology on the Tour as a way to identify plants and provide detailed research-based plant profiles, written by Dallas County Master Gardener At-Home Botanists, on each of the plants to enable gardeners to select the plants that are most likely to succeed in their gardens. Andrew Levi, Founder and CEO of PlantTAGG®, was on hand to assist Tour guests.

The Speakers Bureau provided education on composting by Barry Bloom, pollinators in the garden by Janet D. Smith, and container gardening by C.A. Hiscock. Additionally, Daniel Cunningham of Rooted In presented a very well-received lesson on the best shade plants for north Texas.

The Garden Tour is the largest fundraiser to support DCMGA projects and the 2022 tour successfully accomplished this purpose through sponsorships, ticket sales, and a raffle.

An unanticipated but wonderful outcome of the tour was reuniting with other Master Gardeners after so many months of being separated during the pandemic. You could feel the joy of gardeners catching up, swapping stories, and basking in the glorious gardens. All of us are grateful to Nancy Black for her leadership of the 2022 Garden Tour, to Julie Garza for laying the groundwork for the canceled 2020 Tour, to Betsy See who headed up the extraordinary ticket sales, and to Margaret Marshall for valiantly organizing the team of volunteers. Such success does take a village.

Click here to view the comprehensive plant list for each of the Tour gardens.