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Through the garden gate

Belle de Crecy flowers are on display in Scott Drucker's St. Elmo garden on Tuesday, May 12, 2015. Drucker's residence will be featured during the Chattanooga Food Bank's tour of gardens at the end of the month.
Belle de Crecy flowers are on display in Scott Drucker's St. Elmo garden on Tuesday, May 12, 2015. Drucker's residence will be featured during the Chattanooga Food Bank's tour of gardens at the end of the month. Belle de Crecy flowers are on display in Scott Drucker's St. Elmo garden on Tuesday, May 12, 2015. Drucker's residence will be featured during the Chattanooga Food Bank's tour of gardens at the end of the month.

By Susan Pierce 4 min read

Tour stops

* Evelyn Davenport Navarre Teaching and Enabling Garden, Chattanooga Area Food Bank, 2009 Curtain Pole Road –The teaching garden’s beds provide more than 2,000 pounds of produce annually to the food bank’s Emergency Box Program. Its design shows how to make the most of growing in smaller, urban spaces. The garden is maintained primarily by volunteers. * Scott and Olga Drucker, 4403 Tennessee Ave., St. Elmo — This yard is divided into a small cottage garden in front and two, larger shaded gardens in back. It is filled with heirloom roses, camellias, hydrangeas, perennials and other plants that complement the century-old home. * Mark DeWitt and Cathleen MacDonald, 8900 Winding Bluff Lane, Soddy-Daisy — This Spanish-style home sits on a bluff with spectacular views, surrounded by natural rock formations and a variety of evergreens. * Don and Leslie Nelson, 1103 Bunker Ridge Trail, Soddy-Daisy — A cottage garden, 5-acre pond, vegetable garden and sunny flowers beds present a variety of gardening ideas in sun or shade. * Fred and Bev Przybylinski, 100 Eveningside Drive, Ferger Place — The Przybylinskis enjoy planting a range of plants in beds and antique planters in this urban garden located in Ferger Place just off Main Street.

If you go

* What: Chattanooga Area Food Bank 28th Annual Spring Garden Tour * When: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday; 1-6 p.m. Sunday * Where: Five locations from St. Elmo to Soddy-Daisy * Tickets: $20, sold at each tour stop, cash or check only * Information: chattfoodbank.org; the garden addresses have links to a map.

When Scott and Olga Drucker bought a century-old home sitting on one-third of an acre in St. Elmo, they immediately started making over the yard. It was a match made in heaven: A charming historic home purchased by a landscaper who advocates using heirloom plants, bushes and trees.

And when Scott Drucker says “we have thousands of plantings in the yard,” he’s not exaggerating. The couple has divided their land into three garden spaces that showcase growing in shade, full sun and partial sun. Each section has layers upon layers of greenery that lead the eyes upward from ground covers to flowering bushes to climbing vines on up to a 50-foot-tall pear tree.