Green day

South End garden tour reveals leafy treasures

(Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff)

You may be familiar with open studio tours, where creative types around the city open their doors to the public and give us a peek into their work spaces. The South End Garden Tour, which takes place this Saturday at 10 a.m., works much the same way, but it offers a glimpse at all the creativity and hard work residents put into their gardens - and reshapes our sense of urban space. With everything from small plots to public parks, the gardens on display are as diverse as the people who create them. Here, a preview of three. - LUKE O'NEIL

PAULA ROBINSON AND PAUL DEARE
The lush terrace garden behind their home serves both utilitarian and aesthetic purposes for Paul Deare and Paula Robinson. Although they've only been in their home for two years, the garden itself has been in Deare's family for more than 80. A towering Bing cherry tree, with its full, low-hanging branches, was planted by Deare's uncle 75 years ago, he says. Back then, the family used to eat the fruits and vegetables they grew, and it's a tradition Robinson has kept alive. They've planted some 15 herbs, 13 types of vegetables, and five fruit trees - everything from chamomile to sugar pumpkins. But even more important, they say, is that the garden is a removed, romantic getaway. "This is our place of respite and quiet regeneration," Robinson explains.

JAMIE AND REBECCA LEVINE
The sense of pastoral transformation is strong in the elegant, basement-level garden behind the home of Jamie and Rebecca Levine. "You don't really connect with what's going on out on the street when you're down here," Jamie says. It helps that the long, well-groomed space is nestled between a large stone foundation and tall wooden fence along a street side, and a formidable, densely ivy-lined brick wall of an adjacent Baptist church on the other. Aside from the movement of restless birds flitting through the trees, it's got the tranquil stillness of a relaxing resort. Except, of course, during the boisterous Sunday masses next door, he says. "It's very private back here. It's a great place for eating meals or spending time with the kids." The Levines' garden, which is connected to, but maintained separately from two other neighboring plots, gets a lot of cover from an old dogwood and a draping crab apple tree that stand at either corner. A smaller birch tree, jasmine bushes, and a tidy Japanese maple surround the brick and slate patio, while meticulously pruned espaliered apple trees line one wall. "The former owner had a lot of formal clipped box hedges," says Jamie. "We prefer things to be a bit messier."

CHRIS DEBORD
When you're putting together your ideal garden space it helps to be handy with a few tools. That's certainly true for South End resident Chris DeBord, whose uncanny taste and eye for found objects give his space a unique charm and eclectic feel. At once a garden and a funky folk-art collection, the space features a chunk timber bench under a climbing white hydrangea, headless iron statues, cobblestones and homemade trellises, African masks, a stone bird feeder, and an iron Moravian star, along with hibiscus, lavender, and rose bushes. His construction background inspires him to "plant things that last," DeBord says, which is fitting since his garden will live on in celluloid history as a setting for the upcoming Kate Hudson, Dane Cook film "My Best Friend's Girl." "It's like a house," DeBord explains of his gardening philosophy. "You have a solid structure of what it is, then you come in and inhabit it. You make the space livable."

The South End Garden Tour is Saturday at 10 a.m., and begins at the South End Branch of the Boston Public Library, 685 Tremont St. Tickets are $17 in advance, or $20 the day of. For details, visit southendgarden tour.org or call the South End/ Lower Roxbury Open Space Land Trust at 617-347-0999.