Are you looking for a fun activity in Fuquay-Varina? Or just wanting to enjoy the town’s beauty? The 2023 Garden Tour, hosted by the Fuquay-Varina Garden Club, is the place to find both. True to the Garden Club’s mission “to encourage interest in the art of gardening, garden design, flower arranging and horticulture while improving the environment through beautification, protection and conservation,” the Garden Club sponsors this two-day fundraising event featuring a tour of ten spectacular local gardens. Held once every two years, this is the year!
I spoke with Bev McDougall, Chairman of the Garden Tour Committee and MaryBeth Epperly, Chairman of the Selection Committee, and they provided some history and details about this enjoyable event to be held in May.
In its beginnings, The Garden Tour was hosted by The Woman’s Club, and would start at former Mayor John Byrne’s home on Main Street in Fuquay-Varina. But when the Fuquay-Varina Garden Club was established in 2007, a decision was made that it would be more suitable for them to take on this event, and The Garden Tour became their fundraising project. Proceeds from this event supply funds for Garden Club projects like horticultural scholarships, beautification projects and other endeavors that support Fuquay-Varina, like the installation and maintenance of the Blue Star Marker sites.
The gardens featured on this tour are nominated for inclusion by neighbors, family, friends, or even the homeowner. A wide variety of home gardens will be represented, large and small, elegant and rustic (gardens that use lots of wood structure); there will be something for everyone to enjoy. Although the tour will feature several flower gardens, there will be some interesting variations this year. Since local horticulturist and author Brie Arthur introduced the concept of foodscaping, that is, planting fruits and vegetables into flower gardens, some gardeners have embraced her methods and feature food among the shrubs.
The success of the tour depends on the cooperation of the homeowner and support from the community and local businesses. The Garden Hut, as well as several other local businesses, have contributed to the tour by selling tickets, providing financial support, or supplying other needs, like bottled water for tour guests. This year the Fuquay-Varina Woman’s Club will be collaborating with the Garden Club by selling boxed lunches as their fundraiser.
Two Gardens Featured on the Tour
The Lucille and Wayne Vuncannon Garden
Lucille and Wayne Vuncannon’s garden will be one of the beautiful gardens showcased on the tour. When they purchased their home in 1987, the house, which was built in 1949, needed landscaping. It had no walkway to the front door, no driveway, a stockade fence around the yard, and the property was full of pine trees and a thick magnolia forest. In 1988, they had a landscape plan drawn up, and they started a 15-year plan that is still ongoing today. “We never finish, never get through,” Lucille says, “As any gardener will tell you, it’s never quite like you want it.”
Wade and Lucille both work on the garden. Lucille says, “I dream it up; our son, Randy, draws the plan; and Wade builds it.” Thus, the garden grew and expanded. They bought the property next door, tore the house down and extended the grounds to Raleigh Street where Wade built a carriage house and an arbor. He built an herb house using old materials from three torn down 18th and 19th century houses and added a summer kitchen and a stone fireplace. In one area along the fence, they removed six feet of pine straw, and beautiful plants, covered since 1950, started coming up. Comfrey, naked ladies, daffodils, and camellias bloomed in their newfound sunshine. The Vuncannons planted boxwood among the flowers and made a boxwood garden complete with a charming herb house.
Many family weddings have taken place in the enchanting Vuncannon gardens. A white carriage drawn by white horses carried their daughter from the marriage church to the gardens, while a string symphony played in the gazebo that Wade built, and the wedding reception followed in the garden full of blooming azaleas. All three of their children as well as grandsons have tied the knot in these gardens, and the grounds have also been the backdrop for the several bridal portraits.
The garden grows flowers, evergreens, perennials as well as herbs. Stone footpaths, garden sculpture, statuary, and whirligigs enhance the regal beauty of the garden.
The Becky and John Kowalczyk Garden
Another delightful garden featured on the tour is at the home of Becky and John Kowalczyk. The Kowalczyks moved into their Fuquay-Varina home in July 2018. By January 2019 they had their first inclination to start a garden. Having gone on two Garden Tours, they found inspiration in the amazing transformations people had accomplished on small lots.
When they lived in New Jersey, they had no time for gardening, and when they first moved to NC, they lived in an apartment with no space for gardening. But when they came to live in Fuquay-Varina, the time seemed right: they had a large outdoor space with not much going on in it, their kids were teenagers, and the pandemic provided a good time for a family project. So, the whole family got involved, and they started transforming the yard.
Since then, Becky and John have continued to expand the garden. When they started, their front yard was 90% lawn and 10% garden beds; today it is reversed, 10% lawn and 90% beds. They expect this trend to continue toward the back of the house. They believe lawns are not good for the ecosystem, since nothing much lives in a lawn. A garden is better for wildlife—birds, butterflies, bees, and dragonflies thrive among the planting beds. The soil is much healthier in the beds. When you dig, you find the soil teeming with worms and insects, which in turn bring other life, like frogs. The Kowalczyks set up container ponds in the backyard where they place pots of bogue plants, and frogs spawn there. The backyard also has a section of raised beds for vegetable gardening.
A walk through the garden shows an amazing variety of plants that include conifers, ferns, Japanese maple, agave, desert cacti, hostas, conifers, ginkgo biloba and cardoon, to name a few. For the tour, visitors will be given a map of the garden cataloging each plant.
The Kowalczyk garden was nominated to be part of the 2023 Garden Tour possibly because of the impressive transformation from the empty yard that it was in 2018 into the amazing garden it has become today.
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The Garden Club Garden Tour is scheduled for Saturday, May 20 and Sunday, May 21, 2023. Closer to the event dates, tickets for the tour and prepaid boxed lunches will be available for purchase at the Garden Hut, 1004 Old Honeycutt Road, Fuquay-Varina. Also, further instructions for online purchase will be available on the Fuquay-Varina Garden Club’s website https://fuquayvarinagardenclub.weebly.com
Marybeth Epperly sums up the event nicely: “It is a fabulous event in Fuquay-Varina celebrating everyone who lives here. Whether you are new to the area or have lived here a long time, this tour is a great way to explore our neighborhoods, to meet local folks, and to see what is happening in our beautiful town of Fuquay-Varina.”
