One garden tour I was on where about 6 gardener's got together and opened their gardens charged a modest fee to enter, plus they also had a plant table set up in one of the gardens with some very choice plants,(out of their own gardens of course) for sale. All proceeds going to a worthwhile charity. Garden tours are great fun, it's very important to let people know where they can go and where not to go. Signs and friendly barriers to show people what is off limits do help. Without these you'd be surprised where some people end up.
Signs at the entrance stating 'Sorry No Pets', 'Children must be supervised by a responsible adult', good luck on that one. If there are enough of you, a tour guide is very helpful, taking small groups at a time, explaining the names of the different plants and their growing likes and dislikes as you go along. Many people take notes as well as take photo's and ask questions.
Good Luck on your venture, I love Garden Tour's, yes I'm another one who is always wondering what's behind that garden fence.

A......

It is an excellent way to speed up progress on the garden projects you never seem to get around to. We participated in the NARGS garden tour last summer and we are still enjoying the benefits of all the finishing touches it spurred us on to make. I say go for it.

jb

Yes it is a strong motivating factor and it works and it is fun!!!
Also bear in mind that many who come will need/want to use your bathroom! This may not be a problem but it happened to me. Our house functions on a shallow well and the flush lever sticks useing massive amounts of water when I forgot to warn people about lifting the lever!

Ya know, I've toyed with a similar thought for "finally" getting my backyard in shape. In my case, what I'm considering is having a family get-together in late summer. This would include cousins who have never been to my house.

I'm much more of a plant grower than a landscaper, so there are always lots of loose ends where the overall look of my gardens is concerned. It would be nice to see it pretty much pulled together for once...maybe it will happen with this kind of incentive.

patrick,

I couldn't help but chuckle when I read your post thinking maybe I'd ask you if you wanted to swap tours because I'm neither a great plant grower nor an accomplished landscaper but I'd have to say I'm getting better at the latter and envious of anyone who is better at the former :-)

When I started this tiny little project of mine, I was such a neophyte at both plant growing (along with plant knowing) and landscaping. I started in one back sloped corner with a rock garden and pond and went from there. This is the start of year five of amatuer owner to design/build and I'm getting much better with the hardscape (after placing a million lbs or so) but I still struggle with how to fill up all the different little planting areas I've created. I tried to find a local garden club to join so I could tour theirs and have them tour mine, hoping that would help move the process along but I couldn't figure out how to find one. So I just keep plugging along with my design, I have one last main section in the yard with a side fence and arbor and then most of the structure is done. A lot of the bones are in but sometimes I wonder if I'll ever finish filling in the blanks. I wish I was close enough for a tour to push me over the top.

I hosted a get together of internet pond/garden friends last August and boy was it ever a great motivator. Even DH who ususally merely tolerates my gardening habit got into the action. He built new fencing and trellises and bought me a greenhouse for my birthday. It was a blast.

I am always curious about what is beyond the fence. I really enjoy watching Gardener's Diary on HGTV as it is private garden tours.

We watch HGTV alot but I'm not sure we've ever seen Gardener's Diary. When is it on? We watch Landscaper's Challenge all the time but it's sometimes hard to relate to a $100,000 budget for a project around a multi-million dollar house :-(