A Garden Party!
5/9/2024 10:49 am
Join Us for a Garden Party in Grant Park, Atlanta
Friday, June 7 at 6 pm
We'll be having a progressive garden party at the homes of Director Kari Traud and Pete Antonvich and members Carl Quattlebaum and Jojo Stickney, next door neighbors via the alley in historic Grant Park.
Lovely gardens, cool plants, food, wine, beer and places to lounge while enjoying those - really can you think of a better way to spend an evening?
The Garden of Kari Traud and Pete Antonvich
579 Cameron St. NE, Atlanta 30312
Originally, this city garden in a historic neighborhood was bisected by a giant parking pad and overgrown with weeds, ivy, periwinkle, and mondo. Over 15 years ago, Kari and Pete using blood sweat and tears installed irrigation, pathways, lighting and steps, and replaced the parking pad - and its attendant drainage problems - with a fire pit area. The presence of a 250-year-old Southern Red Oak tree in back dictated a shade garden, so Kari started researching shade gardens. She got to work slowly building the infrastructure of the garden with shrubs, Edgeworthia, Japanese maples, Native azaleas, and others while dragging her husband to many gardening plant sales and events to help her cart her finds home.
The result is an exuberant collection of a variety of shade plants with vibrant hostas, ferns, heucheras, toad lilies, hellebores, moss (shh don’t tell Kathleen), native orchids and a resident gigantic spider. A few years later, the owners installed a pond with two waterfalls that has become a big hit with birds and other wildlife playing in the water, along with a heron who ate all their fish. In fact, the squirrels love it so much they decided to set up house in the screened porch area despite Kari and Pete’s protests.
In the front garden, Kari has ripped out all her grass and planted perennials to create a bee and butterfly flower garden. This established garden has become an oasis within the city for Kari and Pete where neighbors walk over and join them for a glass of wine, tapas, and fun times. The next big project in this urban garden is a Greenhouse/She-Shed and a small parking area in the back corner of the garden. After convincing her husband to help her collect windows and other fun items, Kari now has to talk her husband into building the greenhouse so he can have his own small parking pad!
The Garden of Jojo Stickney and Carl Quattlebaum
657 Rosalia St., Atlanta 30312
Twenty years ago, Jojo and Carl began their project of transforming the back yard of their Historic Grant Park home from a gravel parking expanse into a garden that they could enjoy sharing with friends and neighbors. Today, you'll find raised beds, a chicken coop, a pond, a greenhouse… and pots of plants…lots and lots of potted plants. The potted plant extravaganza extends onto a large deck that overlooks the garden below (and into the house).
Some specifics of the garden include a large cymbidium orchid collection in the back, a collection of begonias in the greenhouse, and an array of fuchsias. Check out the statues, the bridge across the pond, the many hanging baskets on the deck, and more.
