Want to see your garden on a pollinator garden tour?

Looking for beautiful pollinator gardens

Raleigh garden writer Helen Yoest has started a nonprofit called Bee Better to encourage homeowners to plant pollinator gardens.

As part of that effort, Yoest wants to organize a Bee Better garden tour on Sept. 10. She has commitments from a few homeowners and is looking for more who are willing to have their gardens featured on the tour.

In an email, she wrote: “It is our hope that the Bee Better tour will be as important to birds and pollinators as the Tour de Coup is to chickens.”

Learn more and volunteer at beebetter.info.

High Point hosts Designer Garden Tour

If you are interested in seeing some well-designed outdoor spaces, head over to High Point on May 13-15.

High Point by Design and Southwest Renewal Foundation will host “BLOOM: The Art of Outdoor Living,” which will showcase six designer-created outdoor spaces.

The event features products from High Point’s home furnishings showrooms and retailers in six gardens located in the Johnson Street National Register Historic District.

“High Point by Design is excited to launch this spring event,” said Monica Peters, event coordinator of High Point by Design, in a press release. “We hope it will become a bi-annual tradition to promote High Point as a design destination to consumers.”

Each outdoor space will feature a theme: wedding, dining, children’s birthday party, cocktails on the porch, glamping (glamorous camping) and a tiny house. Participating homes include:

▪ John Paulin of Alan Ferguson Interiors and Grassy Knoll will present a wedding theme at the 1908 Queen Anne-style Ecker House at 901 Johnson St.

▪ French Heritage will display an outdoor dining theme in the gardens of the 1926 J.E. Marsh, Jr. Georgian Revival Home at 909 Johnson St.

▪ Sami Price of Just Priceless will design a garden in the theme of a child’s birthday party at the 1919 Foursquare Victorian Dunbar-Whitener House at1001 Johnson St.

▪ Brianne Verstat and ClubCu will feature a bohemian-style cocktail party in the garden at the 1923 historic rectilinear David L. Bouldin Home at 1006 Johnson St.

▪ A locally crafted glamour tent and furnishings from a High Point showroom will display a “glamping” theme at 1105 Johnson St.

▪ Perch and Nest Builders will show off The Pecan, a tiny house at 1002 N. Main St.

The tour is 10 a.m.-5 p.m. May 13-14 and 1-3 p.m. May 15. Tickets are $25 and will be sold at each garden location.

For more information, check out the High Point by Design Facebook page.

Wake Forest Garden Club’s Tea Party

The Wake Forest Garden Club is hosting its annual Mad Hatters Tea Party and Art Market on May 14.

The event includes gardening seminars, art vendors, a classic car show and a performance by an ensemble from the Raleigh Symphony Orchestra.

The tea party, where each guest enjoys a plated afternoon tea, is 11 a.m.-2 p.m. at the Wake Forest Historical Museum, 414 N. Main St., Wake Forest. Tickets cost $15 and are available for purchase now at the Cotton Company and the Wake Forest Chamber of Commerce. Tickets will also be available the day of the event at the museum as long as tickets last.

If you buy a ticket to the tea party, you can also attend two gardening seminars. The speakers include Christina Harvey of the Audubon Society, who will speak at 10 a.m. about bird-friendly gardening, and Raleigh garden writer Helen Yoest, who will speak at 11:15 a.m. about gardening with native plants.

The other festivities are open to the public at no charge on the museum lawn, including the art market, the car show and the musical performance.

Info: wfgardenclub.org

This story was originally published April 25, 2016 at 4:28 PM with the headline "Want to see your garden on a pollinator garden tour?."