The Southern Butler County Garden Club will host its 13th Annual Garden Tour event on July 24 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The event, a self-guided tour of private gardens in and around the Cranberry Township area, includes seven private gardens to visit. Pre-sale tickets are available for $20, with proceeds benefitting the Garden Club’s funding of local horticultural programs. Day-of tickets will be $25.

Garden Club members will be present at each garden to greet and direct visitors. The homeowner at each garden will be available to answer questions.

Alicia Garrison, chairwoman and co-president of the Southern Butler County Garden Club, said that last year’s Garden Tour was a great success during a pandemic summer with few other events. Visitors wore masks in keeping with safety guidelines, and slightly fewer than 250 tickets were sold.

“We had multiple people who were so excited, and many people who said to us, ‘thank you, thank you for not cancelling, and for giving us something to do,’” Garrison said. “We felt the community was really appreciative.”

To explore the gardens this year, visitors must register from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. on July 24 at Cranberry Township Municipal Center Lobby, 2525 Rochester Road, even if they have previously purchased a ticket in advance. They will receive a booklet detailing information about the gardens and directing them along one of three or four routes to explore in order to avoid traffic jams at any one particular garden at once.

Garrison emphasized that the tour isn’t just for people who have previously been part of a garden club.

“We get both types of people: (those) for whom this is the first time and who had never been on a garden tour before, and people who are gardeners, who enjoy looking at other people’s gardens and getting ideas for things to do in their own yard,” she said. “And we get your regular average community person who just enjoys going on the tour.”

Attendees will be entered into a door prize raffle, and raffle tickets will also be sold for a chance to win a “Gardener’s Delight” gift basket, an annual feature of the event. They will also have the chance to purchase glass bird baths and stepping stones created by Garden Club members at one of the stops on the tour.

Presale tickets can be ordered by sending a $20 check payable to Southern Butler County Garden Club along with a self-addressed stamped No. 10 (legal size) envelope to Southern Butler County Garden Club, 842 Van Buren Blvd., Freedom, PA 15042.