Jukofsky: Garden tour ablaze with color and growth

April showers brought the predictable springtime showers, leaving many flowers, plants and some trees at their peak growth and bloom.

It was perfect preparation for the annual Hilton Head Island All Saints Episcopal Church Spring Garden Tour, which is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m May 16.

There's a tour in Bluffton, five on Hilton Head. Here's a sampling.

I started my tour with a visit to the home of Stiles Harper in Bluffton. While some of us have visited here before, I found much that has been newly planted. Many of the plants are exotic. Stiles, just back from one of his many trips to Central and South America, brought back plants not seen or heard of by me. Many were in transition from greenhouse to gardens. Dozens of flowering orchids in pots were hanging from small exotic trees. There are varieties of citrus trees and the largest log covered resurrection fern I've seen.

If you've done the garden tour before, you may think you can skip Pat Rapp's Hilton Head Plantation garden. That would be a mistake. Much of the garden was new to me. It is full of new varieties of familiar plants that leave you amazed at what the horticultural world can come up with. If you stand in front of a striking purple leaved plant and it reminds you of, a Persian Shield, and your guide says it's not, be glad for the plant labels found on all plants at tour time. Breeders are giving us new and interesting varieties of old favorites.

The Rapp garden is a great example of the science of horticulture. My eyes popped when I saw hydrangeas flowering in pink and blue. Could it be what they're being fed? Pat uses Miracle Grow Shake and Feed on new, small plants. There are great looking trees here that give part time shade that provides the best growing conditions for many of our perennials and some annuals.

Mary Ellen and Dick Phillips call their's Grandma's Garden. It is in Hilton Head Plantation and shows what can be done with a small amount of space.

There are flowering plants in new varieties being seen in our plant nurseries and shops. Our mild winters allow for some of last year's annuals to live over, and we can expect to be happily lured by a new coleus or geranium in amazing colors. I was gifted two months ago with a stunning flowering sunpatiens from the local Greenery in Sea Pines that despite the chilly spring rains looks today as it did when delivered. It has enormous flowers that do not drop off.

It's a woodland walk when you follow the path around the Reuter home on Hilton Head Plantation. Located behind the 7th green of the Country Club of Hilton Head, it has been newly planted with small shrubs and flowering plants. This garden is a lesson for new gardeners in how to design a young garden.

It's such fun to visit the garden of Peggy and Frank Oldham in Port Royal Plantation. New to gardening in the Lowcountry, Peggy says she owes any gardening success to friends and relatives -- a dad who brought black-eyed Susan's, a sister who brought roses, and Jim Miller, who brought variegated hydrangeas. Neighbors brought plant cuttings. It all came together to make a lovely garden.

At the Oldham garden, you'll see Knock Out roses both front and back that set the stage for the knock out surprises to come. There are many hydrangeas in pink, blue and purple -- all three colors on one shrub. The big surprise were the about to flower peonies. This is their third year to bloom, and I thought they did not flower in the Lowcountry. I fell for the salvia plants flowering in an unusual color.

The Xeriscape Garden at Town Hall near Sea Pines is not to be missed. There will be guides there on tour day to help you identify the native plants.

Sixty-year master gardener and environmentalist Betsy Jukofsky has spent three decades on Hilton Head Island learning the peculiarities of Coastal Lowcountry gardening.

This story was originally published May 9, 2015 at 12:41 PM with the headline "Jukofsky: Garden tour ablaze with color and growth."