Third annual Encinitas Garden Festival coming to Olivenhain

Everything's coming up daisies ---- and pansies and petunias

By RUTH MARVIN WEBSTER - Staff Writer | Saturday, April 12, 2008 5:05 PM PDT ∞

ENCINITAS ---- Putter around the sleepy back streets of Olivenhain and you will see the subtle, unmistakable signs that gardeners are afoot.

Extra "greens" cans are put out with the trash on Tuesday mornings. Bags of mulch, a rose trellis, or a new urn that doubles as a fountain can be found poking out of the back of the resident trucks and minivans. And these days, every errand includes a stop at the nursery.

Gardeners up and down Cole Ranch Road are busy deadheading, mulching, pruning and planting. They are preparing for their day in the sun ---- their garden's small moment of glory ---- when the Encinitas Garden Festival comes to town.

"I am praying that Mexican lily will straighten up," said Heather Callaghan, whose garden will be on display for the festival's self-guided walking tour on May 3.

"We're doing all those things we always wanted to do, like cutting back, weeding and filling in the holes ... to flossy it up a bit," she added.

Started as an initiative of the city's Cultural Tourism committee in 2003, the first festival took place in May 2005 when 30 residents of downtown Encinitas opened up their gardens for the sell-out event.

The next April, 1,200 people toured more than 20 gardens in north Leucadia. However, last year the event was canceled because of frost.

"Last year, we were supposed to have the gardens in Olivenhain, but when it got down to 18 (degrees), I started getting the calls," said Nan Sterman, who heads the all-volunteer committee organizing the festival. "It was in January when the temperatures dropped into the teens, and there was no discussion ---- we had to postpone it."

This year, the 20-plus private gardens on the tour are looking good, said Sterman, whose front yard is a low-water garden and featured on the self-guided tour.

"As you'll see when you visit my garden, I feel often as if I am an artist and plants are my beautiful palette of color and texture," she said.

Sterman's neighbor, Callaghan, has created her own "Kentucky Garden," with the help of Fallbrook garden designer Scott Spencer.

Callaghan and her husband bought their brand-new home six years ago without a speck of landscaping, just dirt.

"We brought in 140 yards of soil and made all of these mounds and put in rocks and rock planters for interest," she said. "When you have a rock, you let things happen in the crevices."

Sterman and Callaghan have been working tirelessly for months to organize a successful tour for this year's festival. They often meet in the road between their homes.

"We stand out in the street and talk a lot," said Sterman, acknowledging that her and Callaghan's landscaping could not be more different.

"We are allowed to pull weeds in each other's gardens," added Callaghan.

Several gardens on the Olivenhain tour are created in the tradition of England, France and Italy; others are influenced by Mexico and Baja California, said Sterman.

The tour also includes a Zen garden, a tropical garden, a drought-tolerant garden, a country retreat, a certified backyard wildlife preserve and a vineyard.

"We're all looking at what we can do in our own garden, that's the fun of it," said Sterman. "You take an idea and watch it migrate through your friends' and neighbors' gardens."

Festival day begins at the parking lot of MiraCosta College's San Elijo campus in Cardiff, where docents from the San Elijo Lagoon Conservancy will talk about gardening, alongside native plants.

From there, festivalgoers will board double-decker buses, which will take them to the Gardeners' Marketplace at the Olivenhain meeting hall.

Booths featuring plants from boutique nurseries, artists and other vendors will be set up. Mel Hinton, the president of the San Diego Audubon Society will be also be at the marketplace to promote "Audubon at Home," the concept of gardening and landscaping that encourages and attracts wildlife using native plants.

A portion of the event's proceeds will be donated to the Encinitas Garden Festival Fund through the Coastal Community Foundation. The funds will be reinvested into the community of Encinitas for gardening books for the city's new library.

Contact staff writer Ruth Marvin Webster at (760) 901-4074 or rwebster@nctimes.com.

The third annual Encinitas Garden Festival will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. May 3.

Adult tickets: $21, children (10 and under) $7. If tickets are still available on festival day, adult tickets will be $25, children's tickets $10.

Advance tickets may be purchased in three ways: on the festival Web site at www.encinitasgardenfestival.org using Paypal; by mail, after downloading a ticket order form and mailing it with check, which must be postmarked by April 20; or in person at Anderson La Costa Nursery, 400 La Costa Ave., Encinitas, CA 92024.

Visit www.encinitasgardenfestival.org or call (760) 753-8615.