Tucked behind a stone wall, an authentic English garden sprawls across the Rennebohms’ property which lies at the top of Oak Harbor’s Scenic Heights bluff.

Featuring antique roses and poppies, clinging vines and secret garden pathways, Cheryl Rennebohm has created the vintage look of a cottage garden in only four years.

“I think the main feature here is the roses,” she said. “They are all old English roses.”

Rennebohm’s brother, Gary Raymond of Lynnwood, said Rennebohm has always had plants around, but never to the extent she has had since moving to Whidbey Island in 1996.

“Everything you see here is her,” he said. “Everybody is amazed. I don’t think she knows how good it is.”

Rennebohm said she thinks she has an eye for designing garden color themes, textures and patterns because she is a seamstress and has always worked with design. She said she also gets a great deal of her ideas from garden magazines. But most of all, Rennebohm said she sets her garden up according to what is aesthetically pleasing to her.

“I just do it because I enjoy it,” Rennebohm said of her garden endeavors. “I just do what I like. I’m the one who has to look at it and enjoy it.”

Rennebohm is not the only one who enjoy the fruits of her labor. Although she gardens because she enjoys the color and creative aspects, Rennebohm’s garden has brought her quite a gardener’s reputation.

Friends, neighbors and fellow gardeners enjoy Rennebohm’s lovely cottage garden, its fountains, stone statues, mosaic paths and garden greenhouse.

This Saturday, June 25, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. garden lovers will tour Rennebohm’s and other local gardens with the Oak Harbor Garden Club Tour and Tea.

The tour will take guests to the Rennebohm’s “Happily Ever After Gardens;” a woodland garden with an Asian flare, belonging to Buzz Mosher; and an evergreen garden styled with European habits which is the work of Anita and John Rouw. Then guests will stop and have afternoon tea and entertainment at Anne and Ron Tarrant’s Villa d’Aquila, which has several fountains, a waterfall and pond, and features a wide variety of flowers, grasses and ornamental foliage.

The tour’s remaining featured gardens are “Just Mom and Dad’s Garden” which is the combined effort of LaVonne and Doug Wood, and “A Family Affair” which is the family affair of Rob and Emma Hartman.

These last gardens offer guests a chance to see creative creeks, relax in gazebo seats, traverse landscaped areas, critique garden art and enjoy greenhouses, pathways and eclectic and fun garden styles.

Michelle Cook, with the Oak Harbor Garden Club, communicated that a limited number of tickets remain for those who wish to participate in this year’s garden tour.

She said tickets are $15, and the money raised by the garden tour goes to the beautification of the city.

Cook said those interested in participating in the Garden Club Tour and Tea should purchase their ticket at the following locations: the Oak Harbor Chamber of Commerce, the Greenhouse Nursery or the Daily Grind.