Two Festival Garden Tours This Year!
Kerem talks about why he chose various fruit and nut trees last year.
Building on the success of last year’s Open Yard Event, the Forest Heights Blueberry Festival will have two separate Garden Tours this year within close walking distance on Forest Heights Drive. The tours are FREE and will take place between 1-3 p.m. (see start times below).
Kerem Kilic will explain new projects at Treeunion Forest, the suburban food forest he’s developing at 515 Forest Heights (on the corner of Stoneland). Tours will begin on the hour at 1 and 2 p.m.
He will discuss the permaculture principles and land-stewardship practices that guide his designs, including swales for passively harvesting rainwater, which many have probably noticed driving by his yard. Plus, he’ll explain some of the new plants and systems he’s installed since last year, including multi-grafted fruit trees growing different types of fruit on single trees!
Kerem received a permaculture design certificate from Oregon State University. In addition to the work at his home in Forest Heights, he also manages an uncommon fruit and nut orchard in Oglethorpe County. He is passionate about indigenous land management and permaculture systems and wants to help introduce useful multifunction plants in Forest Heights and beyond. He can be contacted at treeunion.forest@gmail.com
Andy’s main garden is double-fenced in beyond this meandering sluiceway.
Andy Trawick also will be giving tours of his extensive hillside garden just a few hundred yards away at 102 Timberlane Drive (at the corner with Forest Heights Drive). Tours will begin every 30 minutes at 1, 1:30, 2 and 2:30.
Andy will explain the extensive work he’s done to control runoff and erosion on the sloped property with the installation of a cascading rain garden, rainwater storage and other techniques. He’ll also talk about the berries, fruits, veggies, native plants, and deer resistant/tolerate plants he’s chosen.
All tours will be limited to 15 people (first come, first served). Children must be carefully accompanied by an adult, since some plants are still quite small and delicate. (There will be no separate kids’ activities during the tours this year.)
Don’t Forget!
Thursday, May 18 is the last day to order festival merchandise in support of the Community Blueberry project.
