Thanks for the feedback, bindersbeeÂsounds like youÂve gotten some valuable experience organizing your event. Too bad you donÂt live here or IÂd draft you : ) We do have answers for some things you bring up, but others I hadnÂt even thought of yet. Size and advertising Traditionally, our neighborhood (like most historic neighborhoods in our city) has had an annual or bi-annual home tour to raise funds. In the past, these have attracted from less than 1,000 to over 6,000 people. The best year for our neighborhood was when we had significant media coverage in the local paper and magazine, related to a major neighborhood re-development project. Most years, these events do not draw media coverage because they are frequent and the offerings donÂt change much from year to year. In recent years, attendance has dropped off, even though advertising has increased. We speculate this is because the neighborhood has matured, there are less renovations going on, and the freshness is gone. We would continue paid advertising for an event like this, but IÂm hopeful that a gardening event geared towards urban and small gardens would draw the media coverage weÂve been lacking recently. Downtown living is a hot topic, and putting the urban/small garden angle on it is something no one in our city has done yet. I like the idea of making contact with various groups that might be interested in this type of eventÂ.targeted marketing to gardeners (pinning down the downtown/small space crowd is a bit more nebulous, though we do have 2 monthly newspapers specifically for downtown dwellers). When are you going to hold the event? Good question. IÂm planning on getting input from the local businesses that might see increased business as a result of this event. IÂd guess that late spring/early summer would be best from that perspective, because IÂd think that the earlier in the gardening season this is held, the more business theyÂre likely to get from attendees. OTOH, an event in late summer/early fall would more likely have better weather and neighborhood gardens would probably be looking better than early in the season. Can you maybe add a 'farmer's market' or produce sharing of some sort? ThatÂs an idea we should throw into the mix. There are a number of farmers markets throughout our city in the summer, but mixing something into the food vendor area might work. Parking/Potties/Food WeÂve dealt with the parking and food vendors before for our home tours. Parking is on the street, and we set up food vendors in one of the parks. WeÂve not had to set up port a potties with the home toursÂ.there have always been some public buildings included on the tour where restrooms are available. IÂm hoping we can work with some of these public buildings as locations for the presentations; that would also take care of the restrooms. 501c3 Yes, our neighborhood has a 501c3 foundation which we utilize for fundraising, etc, so...

What a great project! I attended the Chicago event and loved it. Attendance was depressingly low because it was frigid and raining that whole week - really awful weather. The Chicago one was in a dedicated space where all the gardens were in one giant tent-like building. (Tent isn't correct - it was a HUGE temporarly building.) The event was billed as having "realistic" gardens, but truthfully only a handful were what I would call realistic. The vast majority had lots of architecture added in, outrageous fountains, outdoor rooms, crazily abundant plantings etc., that your average person just doesn't have in the yard. There were a small handful of more realistic settings with more average, but beautiful, arrangements, and those were my favorites since I was looking for ideas about what I could actually implement myself. Sounds like you might like to have a garden walk component as well as, or instead of, a temporary display space. I think that would be great. It broke my heart to think of all the effort and beautiful stuff that literally was only at the Chicago one for a week. What a waste! But getting decorators to do private balconies might be a trick. I believe the Chicago event had some major sponsors, like Target donating a $million. Sorry, I really am just rambling, but I wish you luck on setting it up!

If you're interested in having herbs around, I've found Seedsheets to make growing fresh herbs so easy in small spaces! Container gardening is great when you don't have a ton of space, and now I don't have to run out to the store whenever I need a sprig of fresh basil or parsley. What climate zone are you in? Since I experience frost in the winter, I just bring my bucket inside. Seedsheets.com

We have 12' x 28' yard space between our back/outdoor living porch and our detached garage. It gets limited sun. This is what we look out at from the porch while eating/relaxing. We are leaning toward a flagstone type patio with grass, moss or similar in between the stones, (we had this in our former home). We plan to have a planted area along the garage. The second door at the back of the garage will be the access for lawn mower etc. We're considering a small step down with a larger landing area to accommodate that unless there was some type of natural looking ramp (ha!) we could incorporate. Not sure what to do at the end by fence as it slopes down. Plantings? Water feature? (we like more natural looking water features, not a fountain). Thanks in advance for suggestions/ideas.