Fifteen private gardens will be open to the public June 8 and 9 for the fifth annual Covington Garden Tour in three well-established neighborhoods that are rich in history and prime examples of how the city is moving forward in the 21st Century.
Mutter Gottes, named for Mother of God Church near the intersection of Sixth and Russell Streets, has been added to the tour for the first time this year, joining Old Seminary Square and the Westside, which had worked together for the first four years of the tour.
Although Mutter Gottes is not immediately adjacent to the other two neighborhoods, visitors won’t wear out a pair of hiking boots walking between the neighborhoods. The longest pedestrian “gap” without a garden tour stop would be between 10th and Russell in Old Seminary Square and 527 Russell St. in Mutter Gottes.
Russell Street is the backbone of the tour and includes the starting point at Robbins and Russell, where tickets — $25 on the day of the show — and tour maps will be available from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. on both days of the show. Anyone who purchases a ticket in advance — $20 – must stop by the registration desk to pick up the map/ticket on the day of the event.
One ticket provides access for both days of an event that has attracted hundreds of people to the neighborhoods in recent years.
Parking will be available on the streets and in the John G. Carlisle Elementary School parking lot at the corner of Robbins and Banklick streets, a location that is a half block west of the registration desk at Russell and Robbins.
All of the gardens on the tour this year are “new” in the sense that they were not on the tour in recent years and many of them have never been open to the public in the past.
“People always had great things to say about the gardens and the neighborhoods in the past,” said Don Mays, president of the Old Seminary Square Neighborhood Association, one of the three neighborhood groups that are sponsoring the event. “The only concern we heard was that some people who came back for the tour every spring didn’t want to see the same gardens year after year.
“I think we’ve responded to that question by expanding to Mutter Gottes and offering some different gardens in the other two neighborhoods,” Mays said.
“I also want to stress that the entire tour is easily walkable for 99 percent of the people who might be interested in attending the event. This is not a tour where you might have to get in your car and drive a half mile to the next stop,” he said.
Mays and his wife Tahli have more than a passing interest in the garden tour and similar events in the neighborhoods.
They first became aware of Old Seminary Square when they bought tickets for a house tour in 2013. They liked the neighborhood and the people and wound up moving from Ft. Thomas to the Ashbrook House at Robbins and Russell, where they operate an airBnB in one of the largest homes in Old Seminary Square.
In conjunction with the garden tour, Tahli Mays and an Old Seminary Square Neighborhood Association committee are hosting a “High Tea” that will be held as another fundraiser for the neighborhood group. That event will be held on Saturday at the Ashbrook House and has already sold out.
Advance tickets for the tour may be purchased online at the covingtongardentour.com website, where additional information and photos are available. There is modest processing fee for tickets that are purchased in advance.
All of the profits for the tour will be used to support the three neighborhood associations and charities that are located in Covington.
Friends of Covington
