Gardens are personal. They are creative expressions, even art forms involving colour, texture, living and inanimate materials and loads of atmosphere.

They should be shared.

It’s no wonder in a part of the world where five months of the year not much grows, you’ll find people so passionate about their gardens they’ll invite strangers into their yards in the middle of what seems like a too-short growing season.

For those who appreciate their green-thumb neighbours’ efforts, last Sunday’s Lethbridge and District Horticultural Society’s 21^st annual garden tour offered some insights into the passion.

Like Bob Hironaka’s unique southside front yard, covered in ground-level, white flowers early to mid-summer. He planted in alpine Paronychia Serpylifolia (Mossy Whitlow-wort) 15 years ago. It needs little water and the only time he cuts it is when the flowers wilt. Just runs over it with his power mower. “But don’t drive on it or walk on it in the winter” because that will kill it.

He’s most proud of the Limber Pines he’s nurtured by trimming them bonsai style. “They came from the Porcupine Hills at a place where I had an in. Planted them in 1967,” he says with a broad grin.

Joan Lauderdale’s two-year-old Coulee Creek back-yard garden shows you don’t need grass or a lot of space to create a lush, inviting oasis. She’ll readily identify the Astrantia Major Hadspen Blood, the maroon-flowered Chocolate Sweet William and Epimedium evergreen dry shade ground cover among the other unusual plants around the dry creek bed and throughout the yard “that push the zone limit.”

And Marie Aberle also packs a lot of colour in her small back yard. Along her garden path you’ll find Black Lace Elder and Waterton Mock Orange shrubs and, as in several other gardens, a stunning Ligularia.

A couple of examples of xeriscape design illustrate a growing trend to low maintenance yards using drought-tolerant plants, rocks, boulders and gravel.

Cheryl Bradley and Lorne Fitch invite you into their south-side front yard along a flagstone path that winds through Blue Grama grass to plants such as Karl Foerster feather reed grass and Joe Pye Weed.

In contrast, Sharon and Terry Sakatch’s northside front yard is mainly gravel and larger rocks, some with plants growing out of them, “envisioning a river bottom rising to the foothills.” The park-like back yard features several sitting areas and cedar screens with artwork to hide composters and a shed.

In the Brown’s Uplands garden, Ken has hauled rocks to use as borders and garden backdrops, while Barb’s green thumb seems limitless. She even sings to her plants and prays in her garden.

Penny Dodd on her own has turned the superintendent’s old brick house grounds in the historic town of Commerce southwest of Shaughnessy into a garden showpiece. It features mainly traditional perennials in several gardens and border beds.

The horticultural society sold 300 tickets for this year’s tour. Tour co-ordinator Mike Stefancsik says it was “one of the better tours.” He’s looking forward to the society’s 100^th anniversary in September at its new centennial gardens under the Galt Museum bridge with 3,000 donated plants.

“And, we’re already getting volunteers for next year’s tour.”