Beautiful sights
<p>Dick Kurth, center, eagerly tosses a handful of fish food out to the rainbow trout in his backyard pond during Sunday's Coeur d'Alene Garden Tour as Diane Tapia, left, and Pat Benson, right, watch and wait for the fish to pop to the surface.</p>
<p>This red Asiatic hybrid lily features prominently nearby the Martens' koi pond in their Coeur d'Alene backyard. The Martens' koi pond suffered in recent years where substantial levels of snowfall led to many of the fish dying from suffocation.</p>
Perhaps the only thing better than a koi pond in a backyard garden is a trout pond in a backyard garden.
The only thing better than that?
Maybe a pond with those rainbow-colored leaping fish - some up to 25 inches - connected to a mini creek where those fish spawn and replenish themselves after the grandkids catch and eat them.
Dick and Judy Kurth have just such a pond and creek in their garden at their home at 10743 Snowshoe Drive in Post Falls, where they've lived for about 20 years.
Their 4-acre garden was part of the 13th annual Garden Tour on Sunday, put on by the Coeur d'Alene Garden Club. There were six gardens in the tour in Post Falls, Coeur d'Alene and Dalton Gardens.
"All the ponds are really neat," said Cathey Harte of Coeur d'Alene, who took the tour.
The Kurths' backyard garden is like a park in the woods, where they can host parties for their friends and family. They've got a lot of great spots to sit among the different patches of flowers, plants, plots, and trees to watch wildlife.
"There is no plan here," Dick Kurth said. "The plan is we sit down there and have coffee together and one or the other of us will say: 'You know, I've got an idea.'"
The idea from there is to blend one idea into the next.
Judy said, "Sometimes I have a tree that comes up in a strange place, but several of them I have left because I consider that God has planted them and he'd like to have them there."
The garden has many hand-carved wooden pieces Dick created, including furniture, totem poles, arbors and birdhouses. There's plenty of "recycled" garden art, including wood pieces, rock, and old farm machinery.
"The lavender field in front is very impressive," said Rosalinda Jones of Ione, Wash., who was touring the gardens with her husband, Richard.
"It's a very tranquil area here," he said. "This is very private."
Rosalinda said, "We've gone to other garden tours, and it's usually the remote gardens that are the most impressive."
Some touring the gardens said they were there to gather ideas for their own gardens and yards.
"It's good to see what grows well in this climate," said Jeannie Billmire of Coeur d'Alene.
The home garden of Larry and Marlene Martens of Coeur d'Alene included a koi pond and rock waterfall made to look like a high-mountain stream.
The Martens have planted a variety of trees and plants, including a black-leafed locust, Washington Hawthorn, fineline buckthorn, bamboo and a contorted willow in their 1-acre garden. Their home is at 3208 Lodgepole Road, where they moved to five years ago.
"I think some of the highlights here are the trees," Larry Martens said. That includes the blue spruce, California redwood, cedar tree, cherry trees and pear tree.
"I'm just one who likes different things," he said. "And I never know exactly where I'm going to put them. It's not particularly planned."
What does he like about gardening?
"You do this to keep from getting into trouble, I guess," he said.
Clearly, it's also for others to see and enjoy.