Stop and smell the roses, listen to some music and get a back massage.
On Sunday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., KLCC is hosting their seventh annual KLCC in Bloom: Town & Country, a self-guided tour of spectacular gardens in Eugene. The tour will take place rain or shine and proceeds go to benefit KLCC radio station.
“We have 10 gardens featured on this year’s tour,” Adrienne Colaizzi from KLCC said. “There will be massage stations provided at various gardens as well as a variety of music.”
Some gardens will have two or three different forms of music provided by the radio station. All will be acoustic type acts ranging from Celtic harps and fiddles to folk music and pianos.
The “town” portion of the tour consists of seven gardens all concentrated in the South Eugene area between Monroe and Jefferson, from 19th Street to 24th Street.
“We found that people like to walk through the gardens rain or shine, but they don’t like to drive to each garden,” Paula Carpenter, the event’s organizer, said. “That’s why we try to cluster the gardens together so they can go through it as a walking tour.”
The “country” part of the tour will include three gardens, two off Willamette Street and one at the edge of Eugene in Solar Heights. Each of the country gardens include large scale pieces of land made up of several acres.
Getting gardeners to share a moment in their creations is usually not a problem.
“People usually call us and ask if they can be in the tour,” Carpenter said. Many of the gardeners have participated in the tour previously.
“We enjoy the tour a lot,” Stephanie Niedermeyer, a gardener who will be featured in the tour, said. “When we went on the tour a previous year, it was a lot of fun to see what other people do with their gardens and how they handle different terrain.” This will be Niedermeyer’s second time participating in the tour.
“KLCC does a wonderful job to make it easy on the gardeners who participate,” she said. “It is a real pleasure to work with them.”
Stephanie Niedermeyer and her husband, Paul, have had their garden for about five years, and while it is one of the many things they enjoy doing, they admit that with their busy lives and three kids the garden doesn’t get as much attention as it could.
“It is something we enjoy, but we don’t let it take over our lives,” Niedermeyer said. “People passing by in the street enjoy it. It is a very neighborly thing, and it’s nice because we eat the vegetables out of the garden.”
For some of the gardeners, the beautiful landscapes represent more than just a relaxing hobby.
“Each year we approach gardening like we do life,” participating gardener Kate Joost said. “Sometimes we have more weeds than others.” This year Joost feels like she has an especially close relationship with her small piece of land.

“There has been a lot of digging and removal of clay,” Joost said. “It has been very physical.” She is calling her garden a grieving garden. The novice gardener just recently lost past sweetheart Christopher Lister to prostate cancer and is dedicating her garden to his memory.
“He was a Buddhist Brit,” Joost said. “The garden will have aspects of an English garden mixed with Zen … an American Eclectic.” Her garden has been on the tour before, but during a previous ownership.
“It will be interesting for people who have been on the tour before to see how the garden has changed and matured,” Joost said. While she is happy to share her garden with the public, Joost will not be present during the tour.
“The garden speaks for itself,” she said.
This year the tour is expected to attract 1,500 to 2,000 people.
Tickets are on sale now at various locations for $10. They may also be purchased the day of the tour for $13. For more information call (541) 726-2224.