Garden Conservancy garden
A highlight of the garden tour season in Milwaukee is the national Open Days weekend event cosponsored by The Garden Conservancy and the Milwaukee Art Museum Garden Club. Featured this year are three rarely opened private gardens, totaling more than 11 acres, in River Hills and Bayside. Open Saturday, July 30 and Sunday, July 31, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., this year’s gardens include some one-of-a-kind features not often found on other tours. Diverse in styles and approaches, each offers visitors examples of how nature can stimulate creativity, ecological value, and other forms of productivity.
Two Generations of Creative Expression
The Robbins Garden in River Hills has the distinction of housing the art studio of the late Marion Coffey, the subject of a one-woman exhibition at the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend that is showing through July 10. (Marion Coffey’s vibrant, joyful images were recently profiled in the Shepherd Express
The studio will be open during Open Days, and visitors will be able to see more of her work.
Garden‑owner Lisa Robbins is Coffey’s daughter. Robbins recently said that every weekday morning at 8 a.m. Coffey would arrive to have coffee with her before heading to the studio. Over lunch, they would discuss the morning’s work, and then Coffey would return to the studio until 5 p.m. Some of Coffey’s paintings were inspired by these gardens, as well as her extensive travels, including trips with her daughter. Visitors will be able to see a mural she painted in the Robbins swimming pool, and other art in the garden.
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For the garden aficionado, the Robbins Garden contains magnificent borders of flowering perennials in the English style, surrounded by a custom wooden garden fence designed by landscape architect Judith Stark. Another highlight is a large and colorful assemblage of Wisconsin native plants that bloom from late spring into fall, which provide ample nectar for the resident bees within an apiary and other pollinators.
A Beautiful Working Vineyard
A neighboring garden, The Vineyard at River Hills, is on a hilly site near the Milwaukee River. The house sits at the top of a rise, where visitors will descend a series of stone steps, walk through a mixed-fruit orchard and a meadow accented with native plants, pass a wildlife pond and then walk up to a two-acre vineyard. Believed by the owners to be the largest vineyard in Milwaukee County, its 500 vines are divided into four blocks containing three varieties of winter-hardy grapes: Marquette, Frontenac and Frontenac Gris. Last year, more than 6,000 pounds of grapes were harvested from the vineyard during the vendage (French for grape harvest).
The Vineyard at River Hills
The Vineyard at River Hills
Depending on the weather, the tour may coincide with veraison, the French term for when grapes start to ripen. It’s one of the owners’ favorite times in the vineyard (the other being when all the grapes have been successfully harvested!) since each bunch contains a cornucopia of colors ranging from the bright green of immature grapes to a rosy pink as the grapes start to ripen to a dark purple. Another unique feature of this garden is the inclusion of espaliered apple and pear trees, trained against boundary fences. Other highlights include a large vegetable and cutting garden, Japanese-inspired gardens surrounding an old barn foundation, and perennial borders in both sun and shade.
A Garden for the Senses
The Tsai Garden is a painterly symphony of color, contrast, shape, texture and unexpected planting vignettes. Anna Tsai likes to experiment with new plants to see if they meet her high expectations for vigor and color, and then mixes them into her garden tapestry. Visits to Japan have led to incorporating more evergreens into unexpected and beautiful plant combinations. The garden, which stimulates all the senses, has been featured twice in Fine Gardening magazine.
Garden Conservancy garden pond
The gardens are open to visitors from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, July 30 and Sunday, July 31. Tickets for each tour are $10, with children under 12 admitted free with a paid admission. Tickets are limited and must be purchased online, in advance, at
Open Days and other Garden Conservancy programs https://www.gardenconservancy.org/open-days connect a nationwide community of gardeners and garden enthusiasts. Anyone from novice to expert is invited to experience first-hand a diverse range of gardens and gardening traditions. by visiting some of America’s most distinctive and innovative private gardens. Since 1995, the Open Days program has welcomed more than 1.35 million visitors into thousands of landscapes in 31 states—from urban rooftops and organic farms to historic estates and innovative suburban lots. Open Days happen thanks to the work and support of hundreds of volunteers who help The Garden Conservancy showcase regional horticultural and stylistic expressions.
