Kathleen and Mike Marron were new Tucsonans about a year ago when they bought their small north-side home.
“I’d never gardened in the desert before,” says Kathleen, an Ohio transplant who originally wanted to turn her pea-gravel-covered backyard into a flower-filled garden she saw in a Sunset magazine picture.
Then she spoke with someone at Watershed Management Group, which is holding its annual fall home tour Oct. 1. “They said that none of that was native
and sustainable on their own,” she recalls.
Wanting to be responsible Tucson gardeners, the couple worked with the organization to shape the land in the tiny backyard so that rainwater runs along a modest, rock-lined channel where plants grow inside and along it.
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“I hope they can think of creative ways to use their spaces,” she says, “and create green space that will cool Tucson and replenish the aquifer.”
The tour also will highlight composting bins and toilets, wildlife habitat, shade oases and uses for recyclable materials.
BICAS will lead a guided bicycle tour of five stops and hold a lunch at Watershed Management’s Living Lab.
Three Tucson fall garden tours for your October must-do list