Three gardens in west Rapid City are open to ticket holders, and all who attend the Garden Walk are invited to end the day in the gardens of The Journey Museum at the outdoor reception from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

All funds raised are shared by the Pennington County Master Gardeners, the Rapid City Garden Club and The Journey Museum for continuing education programs.

Guests may enter the private gardens beginning at 1 p.m. Each garden will have hosts from the Pennington County Master Gardeners and the Rapid City Garden Club who can answer gardening questions as well as point out items of interest in each garden. The garden owners also will be present.

Garden Walk participants should remember to wear comfortable flat shoes and consider including a sun hat and a bottle of water. Bathrooms are available at The Journey Museum. Touring the gardens is probably not an event suitable for bringing pets, nor is it good for people with mobility issues, organizers say. Children of all ages are encouraged to come with their families to the reception where the members of the Dakota Artists’ Guild have a number of fun free events planned for them.

Gardens may be viewed in any order. People will be asked to show their tickets at each garden as well as at the reception. All attendees are asked to leave all the gardens (to attend the reception) by 4 p.m.

Gardens featured include:

The Holbrook Garden

3905 Parkridge Drive

Directions: Drive west on Jackson Boulevard to Park Drive. Turning left on Park Drive, go to Westridge and follow that up the hill to Meadowbrook. Turn right on Meadowbrook, go one-half block and take another right on Parkridge.

“I think this must be what Heaven is like,” Janie Holbrook said softly as she stood with her husband, Gale, near an antique hand pump at the base of lush lawn that rolls like a bolt of dark green velvet down the cliff-become-garden that is their back yard of their home at 3905 Parkridge Drive.

Creating their personal piece of paradise has occupied most of Gale’s spare time for the 20 years they have lived on their cliff edge. Gale built astonishing, large terraces of salvaged concrete construction pieces. Some of the terraces are filled with various sedums. Others provide space for a quantity of spruce and pine trees and yucca, or delineate areas for lawn.

There are colorful islands of small shrubs and multicolored shrub roses, protected by nets from the deer. At the back of the home is a very convenient, level lawn area, currently being perfumed by a beautiful linden tree.

The Holbrooks’ garden is lush lawn, beautiful plants, stunning trees and a view to the hills in the west that even a bird must envy. To describe it as “heavenly” only hints at hyperbole.

The yard is very steep and has neither stairs nor handrails. Some visitors may prefer to enjoy it from the top.

The Wernicke Garden

4127 Pleasant Drive

Directions: Drive west on West Main Street to 41st Street. Turn right on 41st and drive one block. Turn right on West Omaha Street and look for Pleasant Street on your left. Police cadets will be at this site to assist with the parking. Please allow them to help you.

In two years, Peter Wernicke has succeeded in transforming the rather featureless front yard of his 4127 Pleasant Drive bungalow into a colorful and charming setting filled with ‘Green Ice’ groundcover roses, ornamental kale, lavender, columnar apple trees, a soon to be vine-covered arch, a wishing well, an herb garden, beautiful wooden stepping ‘stones’ and more.

“My goal is to have no lawn,” Wernicke admitted as he explained his “work in progress” in the backyard, where there are already a large rose bed and a corn patch surrounded by cut lines for new paths and beds in the turf. Soon an elderly apple tree will make room for a new 8-foot-by-10-foot greenhouse.

Everything about his projects excites Wernicke, and it is obvious that the young gardens are responding with equal enthusiasm.

The Phelan Garden

4615 Ridgewood

Directions: Drive west on West Main Street to 44th Street. Turn left on 44th and right on Ridgewood St.

Huge containers filled to overflowing with colorful annuals are the stars of the Paul and Sherry Phelan garden at 4615 Ridgewood. Sherry buys inexpensive baskets containers filled with well-rooted and blooming annuals early in the season and divides them for replanting in her many containers.

Perennials and annuals share a spot with vegetables in a garden tended by Paul. The Phelans’ grandchildren are frequent visitors to a charming garden playhouse decorated with window boxes and child-size pots of pansies. Nearby is a cascading fountain and pool, the home of gold fish enjoyed by the family.

The reception

“We hope that everyone who attends the Garden Walk will come on down to the party on The Journey Museum lawns and in the gardens. Bring your lawn chairs and blankets, and enjoy the fun,” Lorie Barnes, co-chair of the event, said.

“There’s lots to do,” co-chair Diane Melvin of The Journey Museum added.

The Dakota Artists’ Guild will have many of their artists working on art and having items for sale. A special addition this year is free activities for the children. The DAG artists will be helping children with landscape painting on mat board with tempera paints — supplies provided. Face painting — flowers and bugs, of course — is also an option. Or make a mural with natural materials found in the gardens. Printmaking using leaf rubbing with crayon and roller printing also will be offered.

If sitting in a comfortable chair in a lovely garden is your idea of fun, plan to do exactly that while Milo Winter’s Senior Band plays. Refreshments, door prizes, garden tours, and the opportunity to “Stump the Dummy” (Extension Horticulturist Bill Keck) are all part of the program.