GRAND FORKS – Six private gardens, along with the Myra Museum garden, will be featured in the Grand Forks Horticultural Society annual garden tour and plant sale Saturday and Sunday, July 16 and 17. All gardens this year are in Grand Forks.

Anyone with horticulture questions can consult the “plant doctor” from 10 am. to noon Saturday at the museum, 2405 Belmont Rd. People can bring in plants or pictures of plants or pests to get advice on problems they’re dealing with.

The tour and plant sale runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. Tour tickets and plants are available for a free will donation at the museum.

Garden-themed T-shirts and sweatshirts will be available for purchase at one of the homes on the tour.

The southside home of Tim and Meredith Baumann is among the gardens featured this year.

“We started out with window boxes, years and years ago,” Meredith said.

The couple’s affinity for gardening grew to include flower beds around the perimeter of the house and several raised free-form gardens where various trees, shrubs, flowers, decorative glass, vintage objects and metal art pieces grace the property.

The garden includes a Japanese pagoda tree, clematis, hibiscus, a variety of iris plants, chrysanthemums, lilac tree and the Asiatic Lily plant — which is rare in this region, she said.

A large variety of colorful annuals and perennials can be found growing in harmony with art glass blown into swirly shapes, sporting brilliant hues of electric blue, lime green and orange. The brightly colored, eye-catching glass pieces, mounted on metal shafts and placed in clusters amid the plants, are left standing year-round, Meredith said. “They look lovely in the snow.”

An image of the sun, set in a circle atop a metal weathervane, is swapped out for a nativity scene during the Christmas season, she said.

Guests who visit the Baumann home this weekend will also notice a number of whimsical, knee-high Disney figures, including Mickey and Minnie Mouse, nestled between plants.

“That’s our other love,” Meredith said. The family made annual treks to Disneyland before the pandemic. “We absolutely love Disneyland.”

In the beautifully landscaped yard “there are all kinds of spaces where people can look and smile,” she said.

Many plants here evoke memories of the beloved relatives who gave those plants to the Baumanns as well as special artworks that remind them of loved ones who have died.

Meredith, too, gives plants away, for example, by dividing hostas, which “can take over” if left unchecked.

The Baumanns like to decorate with large rocks, which farmers are usually anxious to get rid of, and gazing globes to add visual accents to the gardens, Meredith said. “We have gazing globes everywhere. Most of them are glass.”

She and Tim incorporate unusual things for the eye to take in, she said, “not just green.”

On the west side of the house, the patio is flanked by an old round barbecue grill-turned-planter, with holes cut in the bottom for drainage, that’s filled with trailing snapdragons. Its upturned lid is also a planter. Meredith often enjoys morning coffee on this patio where plastic snakes have been placed to discourage birds.

“People laugh at me when they see them,” she said. “But they work. The birds will not poop on my patio or chairs.”

Also on the sunny west side, geraniums and million bells flowers flourish. The area is adorned with hollyhocks and delphiniums, she noted. “Those are old-school plants.” And a mature tree, already laden with small green apples, promises a hefty crop of Haralreds, she said. “It’s going to be a good year for apples.”

Meredith has given Tim “a little corner” of the yard to grow raspberries and vegetables, she said. The garden is producing beets, carrots, squash, tomatoes and peppers.

Two other gardens on the tour have terracing, said Sharon Opdahl, an event organizer. One has a lot of shade, which will give gardeners some ideas on what to grow in areas that get limited sunlight.

“At least one of them has a water feature,” she added.

Another gardener has planted a tree for each grandchild in the family and has decorated the garden with vintage antiques from her parents’ and grandparents’ farmyards to create sort of a “shabby chic” look, she said. Those items include old barnwood creations, boulders, an old barn cupola, a well pump and a farm sink.

At the Myra Museum, the plant sale will include plants from area nurseries, horticultural club members and others — “mostly perennials but also some annuals,” Opdahl said. “We have a really nice variety of annuals.”

Bird-food seeds, donated by a club member, will also be available for sale.