The Pineridge Garden Club is pleased to announce the winners of the 2024 Garden Awards. The club presents three awards annually to local gardens that beautify our community. This year’s awards were presented as follows:
Bobby & Don Wellck have a double corner lot that displays their beautiful gardens to the public in front of the house and alongside their garage with peeks into the backyard with its circular brick patio and curved beds. Garden accents such as butterfly chairs/benches with potted annuals, numerous tricycles/bikes, an antique pump and turkey feeder are scattered creatively amongst a wide variety of hydrangeas, hostas, astilbe, ferns, begonias, mandevillas, zebra grass, and hedges of peonies, lilacs, and ninebark shrubs. Yellow sundrops and flowering sedum as well as containers of annuals add additional color. Unique features include repurposed chandeliers retrofitted with solar lights hanging throughout the garden & a mounded bed designed around a tree stump and lined with a double row of rocks.
Jennie Dockendorf is a newly certified Master Gardner who also showcases her corner lot to passersby. A pollinator garden serves as a “living fence” between the yard and side street. A kidney-shaped perennial bed accents the front of the house, along with attractive foundation plantings. Oval beds contain river birch trees and diverse plantings of roses, hydrangeas, boxwood, hostas, petunias, nasturtiums, clematis, alliums, dahlias, heucheras, lambs ears and grasses. A variety of vegetables are planted in large, raised containers, along with several herbs. The raised deck is a private oasis with huge pots of flowers and comfy seating.
Mary & Randy Gerlach have an eye-catching front yard with extremely tidy kidney, circular and curved beds with a colorful mix of annuals and perennials. The backyard has mandala-style flower beds of hostas and daylilies around trees and symmetrical plantings including stunning blue delphinium and clematis in front of arbors. A number of annuals also dot the landscape beds. There is a raised bed vegetable garden and a cute nature-themed decorated shed in back as well as a patio area with seating bordered by more lovely plantings & an arbor over a bench swing. They are currently designing a memorial garden in honor of family members.
Gardens which have been nominated are voted on by a committee in late June/early July. The entire club tours the award-winning gardens the third Wednesday in July. The Pineridge Garden Club wishes to thank all local gardeners who work hard to add color and beauty to our local environment! For more information, view the club’s website at www.pineridgegardenclub.org or the Pineridge Garden Club in Cottage Grove Facebook page.