News Roundup -- Garden tour hub blooms/Put your holds on vacation

Garden tour hub blooms

For the first time, the Bainbridge in Bloom Garden Tour is featuring a central “hub” that is open to the public.

Garden fanciers don’t need a Bloom ticket to enjoy the Festival Site and Shuttle Hub from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. today and Sunday at Bainbridge High School.

The site boasts an art fair, plant sale, free lectures on gardening trends by area specialists – including Ciscoe Morris, Barbara Denk, John van den Meerendonk, Phil Wood, Sue Thompson and Lorene Edwards Forkner – and an information booth and food court.

The Bloom Store will offer festival T-shirts and posters, garden-related art, items from downtown merchants and artisan frogs, the mascot of this year’s tour.

Tickets for the garden tour will be sold both days at the hub. Regular admission prices are $30 for adults and $15 for children ages 4 to 12.

Those who prefer to visit the five featured gardens via bicycle may purchase “Bike the Bloom” tickets for $20 per adult and receive a tour map and secure bicycle parking. Portable food choices are available.

As a special bonus, Bloom ticket holders will receive discounts at select downtown shops and eateries. Frog mascots will identify participating businesses.

The 17th annual Bainbridge in Bloom Garden Tour benefits the Bainbridge Island Arts and Humanities Council.

– Rhona Schwartz

Put your holds on vacation

When you go on vacation this summer, put your library book holds on vacation, too.

The Bainbridge public library offers a service whereby patrons who are on a waiting list to borrow a best-seller or other in-demand title can keep their spot on the waiting list until the date they return.

So, while vacationing, a person’s spot will continue to advance up the list. This system lets readers avoid having the book come in while they are away and then having to start over at the back of the line when they return.

Visit the library for more information or call 842-4162.

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