A Short History of the Gate & Garden Tour
Soon after moving to Laguna in 1993, I bought a ticket for the Spring Garden Tour, presented by the Laguna Beach Garden Club. The details are fuzzy, but on a sunny Thursday in May, I was given a map to five or six scattered gardens and set off. At each garden, I and 100 other ticket holders hunted for parking, visited a garden then got back in our cars, drove to the next garden, and hunted for parking again. I did not enjoy the day.
A few years later, my garden was selected for the tour, and as a result I became a member of the club. In 2006, I went to a Board Meeting and suggested the tour become a walking tour and proposed a route past historic homes and charming gardens in my Woods Cove neighborhood; the Gate & Garden Walking Tour was born. No buses, no margaritas, just ticket holders showing up at Bluebird Park for a map of long and meandering walking route.
The following year, I stepped up to manage the tour. For several years, we had no fixed location for registration, no buses, no sponsors. The tour was presented on the first Friday of May, almost 400 tickets were sold at various business. By my third year in charge, we started using buses. A few years later we were able to use Arabella Laguna for registration, and began serving margaritas. And thus it was for many years. I was very proud that the tour netted almost $5000 each year.
In 2018, Karen Nelson and Susan Denton offered to take over the tour if I agreed to be
President. In their capable hands, the tour blossomed. By partnering with the Water District and switching to Saturday, we were able to use their headquarters for registration. On-line ticket sales and a robust marketing campaign doubled the number of tickets sold, and increased the money raised by the tour by almost tenfold.
The innovations continue; the hat contest, tacos, Ladies of Laguna recognition, cardio route, all add fun new elements to the tour.
Laguna Beach will always have beautiful gardens and a colorful history to celebrate. Thanks to the enthusiastic participation of volunteers, the generosity of sponsors and the hard work of the tour director and her team, the Gate & Garden Tour will continue to flourish.
Nancy Englund
2026-2026 President