By Michael Leach
Summertime is coming and that means house and garden tours, a wonderful chance to see how other people live and garden.
Tour hosts are to be greatly commended for spending countless hours and perhaps almost as much money to make their private retreats available for public viewing. Throughout the Midwest, communities large and small have garden tours, often benefitting a worthy cause.
On the national level, a series of tours support the Garden Conservancy’s goals of saving and preserving America’s exceptional gardens for public enjoyment and education.
Several Garden Conservancy Open Days are planned in the Midwest. Locations include:
June 8 St. Louis Area 
June 22-23 Erie County (PA)
June 23 Chicago’s North Shore
July 21 Chicago’s Western Suburbs
July 28 Chicago’s North Shore
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