It’s natural to feel a little garden envy during this month’s garden walks at both ends of the Corridor.

Homes on the Linn County Master Gardeners walk Saturday, June 11, and those on the Project GREEN Garden Tour on June 26 represent some of the area’s best landscape and garden designs.

The tours offer an opportunity to garden vicariously, without pulling a single weed, from Cedar Rapids to Iowa City.

Linn County Master Gardeners Garden Walk

Dick and Kay Harrison brought hundreds of plants with them when they moved to Cedar Rapids from Illinois, and their garden is on this year's Linn County Master Gardeners tour. The rocks in their water feature are from Coon Rapids, Iowa. Photographed Thursday, May 26, 2011. (Liz Martin/SourceMedia Group News)

Dick and Kay Harrison transported hundreds of plants from Illinois when they moved 10 years ago to their rural Cedar Rapids home at 4215 Red Oak Dr. SE.

“We brought a U-Haul full,” says Kay Harrison, 75, a retired bookkeeper who has been a master gardener. Winters spent in her genealogy hobby give way to warm weather gardening on the couple’s three-quarter-acre hillside.

Landscapers used 40 tons of rocks to provide a showcase for hundreds of hosta, along with Japanese painted fern, pulmonaria, bleeding heart and other shade plants. Wildflowers such as yellow wood poppies offer bright splashes of color on the hill behind their home.

Tranquil sounds of a stream and waterfall blend with calls of birds and chatty squirrels.

Red oak trees provide a stately backdrop, but the woodland setting is also prime quarters for hosta-munching deer.

Dick Harrison

“It’s man against beast,” jokes Dick Harrison, 76, a Linn County Master Gardener and retired insurance agent.

He employs a variety of deer-proofing techniques, including odor sprays and fencing. Shrubs and special plants are protected during the winter with cages or netting.

Labels mark many of the plants, such as tiarella, a white-blossomed plant with heuchera-type foliage, and Dick’s favorite hosta, including the yellow Solar Flare.

Kay Harrison

Kay claimed the sunny front yard, planting iris, peonies and more.

Bright pink primrose stand out in vibrant contrast against rocks and green foliage in the front yard, where a stone path leads around the hill.

Frequent rains this spring provided lush growing conditions, along with a challenge.

“I’m a professional weeder,” Dick jokes.

Other homes on the tour include:

 — Becki Lynch garden, 68 36th. Ave. SW, a 3-acre wildlife habitat in Cedar Rapids with woodlands, conifers and tall grass area, patio herb container garden, two ponds and a 65-foot stream.

 — Shelby Foley garden, 451 42nd St. NE, a sunny front garden with a shady, private, parklike rear garden and an eclectic collection of garden art. Poppies and allium are among attractions.

 — Thea Cole garden, 1573 First St. W, a 5-acre Mount Vernon garden with 400 hosta varieties, a viburnum path, alphabet path, vegetables, ornamental grasses and more. Benches and chairs allow visitors a chance to relax.

FYI

10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday, June 11, 2011

Admission: $5/adult or $10/family

Start at any of the four gardens. Master Gardeners will be at all locations to answer questions.

Download brochure and map at www.extension.iastate.edu/linn

Project GREEN Garden Tour

A waterfall and stream were designed by landscape architect David Biehl, and run under a bridge by Trent Yoder at Barb and Charles Clark's Iowa City property, which is on this year's Project GREEN tour. Photographed on Thursday, May 26, 2011. Boulders throughout their property are from a northern Iowa quarry. (Liz Martin/SourceMedia Group News)

Dr. Chuck Clark and his wife, Barb, have plenty of entertaining options at their home at 9 Wildberry Court, Iowa City.

“Rockcoustics” sound system speakers are incorporated with Iowa fieldstone in the backyard, which features a pool, deck, patio and outdoor kitchen.

Copper sculptures rotate in the wind and gates are artwork in themselves, with oak and aspen motifs.

A grove of aspen trees reach into the sky, while leaves of smaller aspen rustle in the wind.

Clark, 60, an orthopedic surgeon at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, credits landscape architect, David Biehl, for the thoughtful arrangement of colorful stones that form natural-looking streams and waterfalls.

“He’s a true artist.” Clark says.

Lighting reflects the water at night and brightens pathways that meander through the couple’s two properties.

Charles Clark

One water feature drops above a patio and firepit encircled by lime green lawn furniture.

“I love the sound of that water,” Clark says, noting the spot offers a respite from his high-paced job.

He also appreciates the plantings that offer color year-round, including tulips and daffodils in the spring.

“There’s something flowering all the time,” he says.

Other gardens include:

Iris (Liz Martin/SourceMedia Group News)

 — Anna and Carolyn Boerner home, 237 Lexington Ave., Iowa City. A curved stone terrace and wall designed by Iowa City Landscaping eased lawn-mowing problems caused by a sloping front yard, now dotted with small trees, perennials and annuals. A garden fountain and custom metalwork are among the backyard features.

 — Nora and Bill Steinbrech, 404 Magowan Ave., Iowa City. Woodland wildflowers, ferns and lush plantings spread under the shade of ancient trees. Boggy soil was relieved by a French drain that siphons drainpipe flooding into an attractive rock basin.

 — Don Bolin and Liz Hall, 7 Valley View Place NE, Iowa City, have a nearly 1-acre garden overlooking Shaffer Pond in River Heights. They are halfway through replacing poison ivy with hundreds of varieties of trees, shrubs, shady perennials and wildflowers. A goldfish pond, 7-foot-high gargoyle named “Uboughtwhat?” and a 300-pound angel sculpture dubbed “Hernia” are among highlights.

 — Carrol and George Woodworth, 14 Westview Acres NE, Iowa City, a multilevel garden on a two-acre site with thriving native dogwoods, river birch and spruce. A trellis and mesh fence enclose the backyard’s contoured perennial beds, shrubs and wildflowers.

FYI

10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Sunday, June 26

$5.00 admission (16 and under free.)

See: www.projectgreen.org