Get Your Ticket for California Dreamin' this Mother's Day Weekend

"Gardening is the art that uses flower and plants as paint, and the soil and sky as canvas."

~ Elizabeth Murray 

Iamge  from Previous Tour, courtesy of RSSM 

The Rose Society of Saddleback Mountain (RSSM), a non-profit American Rose Society (ARS) affiliate, is pleased to announce the 25th Elegant and Enchanting Garden Tour. 

Where: South Orange County 

When:  Saturday, May 7, 2016 from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM

What: Four unique and innovative private gardens 

Don't let the sponsoring organization's name restrict your imagination in what the tour features. The event is about more than roses. It is about the full-spectrum of the opportunities to create beauty. And happiness. In personal gardens.

The cliffside home of Rick and Julie Borgens included a spectacular view of the Pacific Ocean

The garden selection process is rigourous. RSSM master gardeners select sites for variety, special features, and floral elegance. The tour date promises gardens blooming in full spring splendor with magnificent floral and plant displays, garden architecture, and ideas for environmentally sound garden practices.

A very traditional garden vignette in the garden of Patricia and Steve Buice

The  RSSM Elegant and Enchanting Tour is a unique opportunity to go behind the gates of some very special private properties not normally open to the public. While the pictures are from past tours, let the descriptives of two whet your appetite for this year's gardens.

Isn't this the best  Mission Project display by Patricia and Steve Buice 

The 2016 tour theme is California Gardens/California Dreamin’. This year's selected gardens include a hillside San Clemente California ranch  with the diversity of plantings our region is known for. Besides the vegetable garden, the landscape is abundantly planted with specimen California trees, fruit trees, roses, Pride of Madeira, and aloes. It is a sanctuary for birds and pollinators.

Garden Designer Dawn Saunders arranged plants with a masterful eye towards color and ease of maintenance. The garden has been photographed by a MAJOR publication for release at a later date.

This year, plan on visiting a discrete upper San Clemente  stucco home. Ornamentation includes beautiful Spanish tiles. The owner, a landscape architect, has an incredible collection of succulents.  The piece de resistance: a rose climbing over the garden wall, the adjacent fountain luring visitors down the garden path.

The remarkable garden of Maria del Carmen Calvo led to cover article  for  Western Art and Architecture. 

Tickets from prior tours  have funded more than $50,000 in scholarships.RSSM funds Horticulture and Plant Science-related scholarships for college and university students at Cal State

University Fullerton, Saddleback College, Cal Poly Pomona, and other institutions.

Purchased in advance, tickets are only are $25.00. To order tickets, visit the RSSM website

www.rosesrosesroses.org or call 949-837-2141

The day of the event, tickets will be available for $30 each, at  the residence located at 3 Maracay, San Clemente, CA 92672.