Six gardens on full display for Spokane in Bloom tours next weekend

Sun., June 7, 2026

By Pat Munts For The Spokesman-Review

Stepping into MJ and Richard Woods’ garden on Dartford Creek north of Wandermere made me think I was stepping into the English landscape from the children’s story “Wind in the Willows.” All the elements of Mr. Toad’s landscape are here except that the storybook characters have been replaced with deer, moose, turkeys and quail.

Richard and MJ’s Garden is one of six Northwest Spokane gardens that will be featured on this year’s Spokane in Bloom garden tour Sunday, June 14. After a year’s hiatus and new management, gardeners will be able to wander through the tour gardens and look for design ideas and cool plant combinations for their gardens while enjoying local artisans and musicians as they browse. The tour will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Tickets provide a map of the gardens and are available online at the Eventeny event ticket website. Tickets are $20 with a $1.58 service fee. Children 12 and under are free. If you need assistance with the Eventeny order website, the staffs at Northwest Seed, Barn and Blossom and Judy’s Enchanted Gardens can help you order your ticket. Cash-only tickets will be available at each home garden.

The Woods’ garden (14509 N. Dartford Drive) has been titled the Creekside Chronicles and beyond the feel of Mr. Toad’s landscape, the garden features fruit trees along the creek and a patriotically themed deer-resistant area. Behind protective fences is a rose garden featuring roses named after famous songs, a shade garden and vegetable beds filled with squash trained to climb cattle panel supports. The deer-proofed sunny front garden features color-themed patches of perennials that will be in their glory for the tour. Look for parking instructions at this garden.

At the Waterwise Wonderland Tale garden (4318 N. Walnut St.), the front yard features a water thrifty shrub garden developed under the Spokanescape program and shaded by a giant old maple tree. Its serenity is at its best. Go through the gate to the backyard and it’s a different story. Here owner Robin Ann Bienemann shows off her whimsical and chaotic collection of found art pieces and bird houses interplanted with colorful annuals and perennials. Check out the white pig next to the old bathtub filled with flowers. The back fence is a wild collection of bird houses created by Bienemann. There will be a food truck available in this garden for lunch.

Growing edible crops is the key focus at the Waterfront Harvest Narrative garden (17310 N. West Shore Road). Here the owner Gabi Tilley, a long-standing volunteer for the Friends of Manito, is growing a dozen raised beds filled with vegetables, potatoes in grow bags and archways for Cinderella pumpkins. Beyond this are beds filled with over 40 varieties of peonies, drifts of daisies and other colorful perennials and annuals. Stop and relax on the cool lawn that slopes down to the one hundred feet of sandy beach along the Spokane River.

Then it’s on to the Orchard of Many Chapters garden at Mission Creek Farms (18927 N. Division Road) off U.S. Highway 395 where you can enjoy a local you-pick small farm. On 5 acres, the farm owners grow over 100 raised beds of vegetables, 350 fruit trees and 800 Christmas trees as well as colorful flowers beds. Here you can learn tricks on how to grow almost anything in sandy soil.

The Permaculture Parable garden (15705 N. Timberglen Court) blends beauty with function in a beautiful ecosystem powered by an impressive compost system that recycles nutrients back into the soil. Nothing organic is wasted here to produce thriving beds of herbs, vegetables, fruits and alfalfa for the chickens. Take home lots of ideas from this garden.

The Shared Soil Storybook garden at Covenant United Methodist Church (15515 N. Gleneden Drive) is a community garden built by neighbors to grow food for themselves and the community and build a close-knit community of friends and neighbors.

The Spokane Expo Garden Team putting on the tour would like to thank the gardeners who opened their gardens to the community and for support provided by Spokane Pre-Cast and the Commellini Estate and ticket assistance from Northwest Seed, Barn and Blossom and Judy’s Enchanted Garden.

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