Five private property owners opened their gates for the Coastal Treasures Garden Tour last weekend, showing off dramatic floral displays, hardy perennial beds, spectacular landscaping, decorative container plantings, orderly rows of vegetables and rare specimen plants.

Sponsored by the Wareham Garden Club, the tour was a fundraiser to support the club's scholarship fund and civic beautification efforts such as the flower containers on Main Street and street plantings.

The tour began at the Methodist Meeting House with informational displays on organic lawn care and invasive plants.  The next stop was the reclaimed industrial waterfront where the architecture of the British Landing Condominiums provided an appropriate backdrop for the floral displays of some of the club members.  Homes and a beautiful estate out Great Neck Road provided the next stops.

At each home, Garden Club volunteers were available to point out unique plants and landscaping features, and some proud homeowners were also available to answer more practical questions such as what to do with rosemary in the winter and how to keep the deer from eating lilies.

And visitors were impressed.

"They were so creative," said Marion resident Gwen Breault of the floral displays.  "I would never think of the things they have done."