Waseca Garden Tour to feature Cones, Fossums, Kuschels and Millers

Even though one downpour after another hasn’t made for the kindest of growing seasons, a number of local gardeners are still looking forward to showing off their plants at the 35th annual Waseca Garden Tour on July 20 from 1 to 5 p.m.

At the Waseca County Historical Society’s Bailey-Lewer House, which has its own impressive gardens maintained by Historical Society volunteers, gardening enthusiasts can enjoy refreshments and grab an itinerary before taking off for the other four houses on this year’s tour.

This year’s tour features a quartet of lifetime hobby gardeners — Linda and Chuck Cone, Bill and Geraldine Kuschel, Cindy and Roy Miller, and John and Pam Fossum — with deep Waseca roots, but not all of them have been regular participants on the tour.

For Linda Cone, her passion for gardening is motivated as much by an appetite for delicious veggies as a love for beautiful flowers. While the former owner of Pine Gardens Bed and Breakfast keeps some flowers up front, it’s her backyard vegetable garden that steals the show.

“I’m not a master gardener; I plant what I like, and I like fresh veggies,” Cone said.

With cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, beets, okra, kohlrabi, lettuce, spinach, cantaloupe, zucchinis, raspberries and strawberries among the veggies and fruits crammed into Cone’s thriving garden, the fruits of her labor are likely to show up on her table long after the 20th.

That said, Cone’s garden has been threatened by what has become an overabundance of rain. Concerned that her flowers have gotten too much rain and are starting to “drown,” Cone has begun dragging them indoors whenever a new downpour is in the forecast.

While Cindy Miller’s flower garden might fit a more traditional mold, Miller admits that more purists might find the wide range of flowers she has accompanying her signature hostas and lilies to be a little bit odd and eclectic.

Describing the flower garden as her “sanctuary,” Miller said she developed a passion for flowers growing up. She inherited it from her mother, an active member of the Garden Club who has previously been featured as part of the Garden Walk.

Miller is no Garden Tour regular; she recalled participating once, more than a decade ago. This year, she decided to get involved with the Garden Tour after showing her flowers to Judy Thompson, a Garden Club member who she happens to work with sometimes.

Thompson thought Miller’s flowers looked beautiful, so she urged her friend to participate in the tour this year. Miller agreed, but she’s working hard to spruce up the previously casual garden which she had cultivated largely for her own personal enjoyment.

“(Judy) thought I should do it and I thought, ‘Well, I wouldn’t mind doing it one more time,’” said Miller. “It’s a work in progress; I’ve been adding lots of things.”