When most of us garden we seldom take the time to look up, let alone look around. Sometimes a new perspective changes everything. Gardens look different when you stand upright and aren't bent over. June is a time for sharing, so put on your sun hat and stroll area gardens for some great ideas for your own backyard. Oh by the way, your weeds called and said they would wait for you to get back.

University of Illinois Extension Master Gardeners of Champaign County will host their annual garden walk in Champaign and Urbana on Saturday, June 23, 2007 from 9:00AM-4:00PM. The event will be held regardless of weather. This year I doubt anyone would mind a little rain.

"Serene Spaces in Urban Places" is the theme of this year's event. Guests will find spectacular gardens to suit every taste from simple pleasures to elaborate designs and from young to more mature gardens.

Sights and sounds abound with this year's garden walk. You can enjoy the whimsy of animal topiaries, listen to the waterfall in the Japanese garden, get some ideas for an outside entertainment area, and be a kid again in the children's garden. Some gardeners started with a clean slate and others dealt with an inheritance of too many trees planted too close together, too many tons of landscape rock, and lousy soil. The gardens may look idyllic now, but they didn't get that way overnight. It's too bad we can't do a time-lapse photography of the gardens. It might make us all believe in the possibilities to change our landscape.

As one garden walk gardener shared after many years of undoing another person's "vision" of paradise: "my sweet husband dug the asphalt out of the pond [leftover from a previous owner's vision] and removed tons of landscape rock and has shoveled and moved many mounds of compost over the years. Last year we laid 37 tons of patio stone near the pond and it feels like heaven out there but I think he's retired now! I think I'm done too...well maybe just one more tree...every time I think I'm done some new opportunity for a spotlighted moment makes itself known. So I suppose it's never done. The need for change is at [the] core of creativity." Well spoken.

Another garden walk gardener shared this advice for beginning gardeners:

"Don't worry about following rules or knowing everything about gardening. Plant things you enjoy."

Besides learning tips from gardeners that have "been there", you can also find that special item for your garden from the many vendors at the Idea Garden on the day of the walk.

All proceeds from the garden walk go back into the community by funding Master Gardener projects in Champaign County such as the Idea Demonstration Garden, community garden projects at the Champaign County Juvenile Detention Center, CC Nursing Home, Centennial High School and the Crisis Nursery.

For more information, please contact University of Illinois Extension Office at (217) 333-7672 or champaign_co@extension.uiuc.edu.

Tickets are $10 in advance and $12 on the day of the walk. Tickets are available in Champaign at the University of Illinois Extension office at 801 North Country Fair Drive, Abbott's Florist, Greenview Nurseries, Rick Orr Florist and Prairie Gardens. In Urbana at Country Arbors Nursery, FS Farmtown, and English Hedgerow and each Saturday at Urbana Farmers Market. Also available at Pages for All Ages Bookstore in Savoy, Kleiss Nursery in Tolono, Danville Gardens in Danville and Champaign, and Schuren Nursery in St. Joseph.

Monticello Garden Walk and Taste of the Garden

June 16, 2007, 10am - 4pm, by Monticello Chamber of Commerce and Kirby Hospital Auxiliary. Enjoy 6 gardens and a special tea. Featuring 2 gardens in Monticello Historic Districts. Tickets available on walk day. For information call 217-762-7921.