North Riverside garden tour to celebrate birds, bees and butterflies

You can learn about feeding birds, bees and butterflies while touring five home gardens during the North Riverside Garden Stroll on Saturday.

The stroll will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and tickets are $5 for admission to all gardens on the tour, available at Johnson’s Garden Centers and Seasonal Decorating at 2828 W. 13th St. and at each of the gardens during the tour.

Monarch butterfly advocate Teresa Hammer will be at the garden at 1530 W. 20th St. North with information about attracting and tagging monarchs and planting way stations for them. That yard is on almost an acre of land that backs up to the Arkansas River.

Chad and Melinda Mulligan will be at 1402 N. Garland with tips on beekeeping and increasing the bee population.

Bird feeders can be found particularly at 1919 N. Payne and 1435 N. Woodland.

The fifth garden, at 1415 N. Salina, has been named the Rose and Thyme Cottage by owners Michael and Kathleen Webb. Homeowners will be on hand at all of the gardens to answer questions.

The neighborhood community garden at the alley west of 15th and Woodland also can be viewed on the tour.

The North Riverside Neighborhood Association sponsors the tour, and proceeds benefit neighborhood projects. The first project to be financed by the stroll will also be on the tour: the Triangle Garden at McKee and Coolidge that was transformed from a wasteland to a restful flower garden. Neighborhood volunteers with help from Johnson’s Garden Centers have planted and cared for the garden.

North Riverside is between the Arkansas and Little Arkansas rivers and between 13th and 21st streets, and some of its streets run on a diagonal because the Arkansas Valley Interurban, an electric commuter railroad that once connected downtown with Newton, Hutchinson and other towns, ran through the area starting in 1918.

Other historical information about the houses on the tour is part of the ticket from Kathy Morgan, historic preservation planner for the city of Wichita.

This story was originally published June 15, 2016 at 3:38 PM with the headline "North Riverside garden tour to celebrate birds, bees and butterflies."