Home and Garden Tours Put Out the Welcome Mat

In the world of homes and gardens, there are a few events coming up that you won’t want to miss. Giving you the opportunity to peek in on some of the area’s most creative and artistic homeowners and landscape enthusiasts, these tours are sure to inspire.

From lakeside kitchens and gardens to front-yard sculptures and backyard playhouses, several creative vignettes pepper Metro Detroit’s home scene.

Upcoming June events include the Sylvan Lake Home and Garden Tour on June 11 and the Franklin Branch of the Women’s National Farm & Garden Association’s annual Garden Walk on June 15. The Rochester Annual Garden Tour kicks off with a preview party June 15, followed by the tour on June 16.

Around the lake

Tour participants of the Sylvan Lake Home and Garden Tour are in for a splashy treat as they make their way through a potpourri of seven homes and three gardens.

From a designer kitchen overlooking the lake to a foreclosure home that has been completely restored, this tour features a variety of surprises.

When homeowner Pam Friedman moved into her home on Sylvan Lake 18 months ago, she fell in love with the great room.

“Our great room functions as a living/dining/kitchen area,” said Friedman, a nurse anesthetist at Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak.

Built in 2000, the space features a wall of windows that overlooks the water. “My husband (Dr. Neil Friedman) calls it the ‘Oh, My God’ room because people come in the front door and that is the first thing almost everyone says,” Friedman said. “It’s a very dramatic room.”

For the past several months, Friedman’s kitchen has been undergoing a complete overhaul. Ready for tour-goers, the kitchen sings with a palette of colors that echoes nature and lake hues. Mahogany cabinetry blends with gray/green/taupe granite countertops, while a white glass tile backsplash with iridescent blue and green inserts add serenity. “I wanted it to be colors that remind me of the lake,” said Friedman. “It’s very functional; it makes cooking fun.”

Friedman says those on the tour will enjoy seeing how much storage she was able to build into the plan. “I even have drawers that are not filled yet.”  She also opted for a double oven. “That’s a necessity,” she said. “I love to have big family parties (Friedman has three grown children who often are there during the summer), and it wasn’t possible in my old kitchen.” 

The Friedmans’ home truly is a dream for the family. “It’s been on my ‘bucket list’ to have a home on water,” Friedman said. “And it’s been my husband’s dream since he was a child with a family cottage on Cass Lake.”

Blooming in Bloomfield

When Brandy Silverstein moved to her home in Bloomfield Hills off Gilbert Lake Road, she not only unpacked furniture, clothes and housewares, but also a landscape vision. 

“Back then, it was pretty much all yard and no gardens,” said Silverstein, who moved to her ranch-style home seven years ago. Since then, she’s turned the front and back yards into a garden lover’s dream, with everything from expansive peony beds to a flower-adorned playhouse for her 4-year-old daughter, Lucy, to a pretty patch of sunflowers.

You can see Silverstein’s blooming haven, along with several other private gardens, during the Franklin Branch of the Women’s National Farm & Garden Association’s 26th garden walk June 15. 

Silverstein’s dreamscape certainly fits with this year’s tour theme: “Nature in Our Hands.” The flower lover, who grew up in Garden City (perhaps that’s where the love of gardens comes from?) used her own green thumbs and hands—and her keen sense of composition and design—to create whimsical vignettes and cheery swaths of color around her entire home.

None of that went unnoticed to the garden tour committee and friends. “Someone spotted the gardens when I was having a garage sale and they asked if I’d mind being considered for the tour,” Silverstein recalled. “It’s funny, during the garage sale, all the customers were more curious about my gardens than what was in the sale,” she added with a laugh.

Silverstein said she picks up artistic accents, containers, pots, archways, chairs and fun signs (a rustic fruit stand sign that says “strawberries,” for example) at flea markets, antiques shops and garage sales, mostly. “I have a vision; I know what I’m looking for,” she said.

In this gardener’s case, it appears the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. Silverstein’s mother, who lives in Fowlerville, is quite the gardener as well. “She was ‘Martha’ all the way,” said Silverstein. Silverstein’s aunt in Tecumseh also had a knack for growing things. In fact, tour-goers will see the Tecumseh resident’s peonies now growing happily in Silverstein’s back yard.

“She had the peonies for more than 20 years and wanted to give them to my mom and me, so we went and dug them up,” Silverstein said of the white, pink and magenta beauties.

While Mom’s favorite flowers are wisteria, daughter Lucy says hands down her preference has got to be the sunflowers that she and Mom plant every year in a different spot. “I like the ladybugs that sit on them,” said Lucy.

As always, the walk features its popular salad luncheon buffet (this year at St. Owen Catholic Church in Bloomfield Hills) and an artisan market of garden-related items.

Beyond Silverstein’s gardens, another stop in Bloomfield Hills features views of Chalmers Lake. Swans are in residence along with egrets, blue herons, wood ducks, hummingbirds, fox and deer. Perennial gardens enhance the calming lakefront ambiance.

Look for trillium, lady's slipper, orchids, multiple-colored bearded irises, wild geranium, ferns, lilies, astilbe, roses, hostas and more. Be sure to check out two ornamental trellises with massive scrollwork and floral medallions. Artist Carlos Nielbach, who will be on-site during the tour, created them. More unusual and artistic accents include a totem pole from the Yukon, stone sculpture from China and bronze sculptures from Bali, Indonesia and Thailand.   

Gardeners dig DIY

The and the Rochester branch of the Woman’s National Farm and Garden Association are getting ready to present their June 16 Annual Garden Tour, which sprouts with gardens of all kinds this year. As different as they are, all six have something in common: The homeowners do much of the gardening work themselves, said Pat McKay, tour organizer.

McKay, who’s been director of the for the past 25 years, works with organizer Lee Peters and the garden group team to find a variety of enticing gardens.  

“If we see a nice garden, we pull in, go to the door, knock and try to convince homeowners to have 800 people traipse through their yard,” McKay said with a chuckle. “In all seriousness, we have a lot of eyes and ears out there looking for gardens that meet our high standards. For 12 years, with six to seven gardens per tour, we’ve discovered some 80 great gardens. We’re a lucky community to have that many.”

This year, it’s all about do-it-yourself gardeners. “Most of the homeowners on the tour do their own work,” McKay said.

One of those homeowners is Rochester’s Odette Moore, who began creating her pretty oasis, including a little pond, six years ago. Growing up in Utah, Moore and her husband, Jim, say they’re not used to growing perennials so are sticking with annuals for now. They look great amid the Moores’ double-lot, wooded property that brims with hostas and pine trees. 

“We bought this home because of the beautiful pines,” said Moore, who is a freelance accountant.    

Moore’s love for plants and trees stems from her days as a teenager taking care of people’s lawns. “Some kids babysat; I mowed lawns,” she said with a laugh. One of the lawns she worked on was next door to a home with a lot of plants. “I would learn things from that homeowner,” said Moore.

Jim’s parents were heavily into gardening and passed that passion down to their son.

The Moores say that tour-goers can expect a bit of a surprise as they enter their property. “We’re neat, tidy, symmetrical and probably more manicured than the other gardens,” said Odette Moore.

An English-style garden with more than 1,000 plants also is featured on the walk. Don’t forget to tour the Children’s Garden on the museum grounds as well as the Dairy Barn and historic plantings surrounding the 1840 Van Hoosen Farmhouse.

This year, there will be master gardeners stationed at the homes to answer questions for tour-goers. “It’s a great community event,” McKay said.

Information:

• The Sylvan Lake Home and Garden Tour is 10 a.m.-4 p.m. June 11. For tickets, call 248-615-6296 or visit www.sylvantour.com. Visitors can drive, walk, bike or ride the shuttle buses.
• The Franklin Garden Walk is 10 a.m.-4 p.m. and 6-9 p.m. June 15. There will be a salad luncheon buffet at St. Owen Catholic Church in Bloomfield Hills, at extra cost, and a boutique of garden-related goods at the gazebo in Franklin. Tickets are $10-$12, sold on the day of the walk, at Franklin Village Gazebo, on the west side of Franklin Road between 13 Mile and 14 Mile roads. Purchase tickets earlier at The Village Boutique, at 32716 Franklin Rd. Proceeds support horticultural and environmental causes; 248-851-1066, www.franklingardenclub.org.
• The Rochester Branch of the Woman’s National Farm and Garden Association’s Annual Garden Tour is 11 a.m.-7 p.m., June 16. There will be an open-air market and refreshments at the Rochester Hills Museum at Van Hoosen Farm from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Garden Walk tickets are $10 ($8 members) in advance and $12 on the day of the event. Both events will be held rain or shine, and tickets are available through the museum website at www.rochesterhills.org, at the museum on Fridays and Saturdays from 1-4 p.m. or by phone at 248-656-4663. The museum is located at 1005 Van Hoosen Rd., one mile east of Rochester Road off Tienken Road. 
• “A Garden Gala” is the theme for this year’s Rochester Garden Walk preview party 7-9 pm. June 15 at a rambling city garden. Guests will take a guided tour of the amazing property and will see culinary demonstrations by local chefs. There will be appetizers, desserts, music and plein air painters. Tickets are $45 per couple or $25 per individual and include a ticket for the next day’s walk.