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MARQUETTE -- Have you seen the flowers that line Marquette's roadways in the summertime?  Those brightly colored gardens are made possible thanks to funds raised by the Marquette Beautification and Restoration Committee.  Thursday was the committee's annual Garden Tour, its largest fund-raiser of the year.

When you walk into Donna Keskimaki's garden, the feeling is surreal.  It's some combination of bliss and amazement in vivid shades of yellow and red and green.

Donna's garden is one of nine on this year's Garden Tour, and each one offers its own unique flair.

"Probably the thing that amazes me the most is what's in people's backyard.  You just drive by, and you have no idea.  And that's what we want to be able to show people and give them ideas of things they can do in their own yards to help beautify Marquette," says Phyllis Zaenglein, Co-Chair of the committee.

The tour featured everything from an antique-looking bridge wrapped in summer's best to a serene fountain that almost puts you to sleep, and Donna's backyard is really an overwhelming sight that stimulates just about all the senses.

But how does a gardener get to be this good?  Well, Donna was a school teacher for 31 years, so she had summers off.  She loved getting her hands dirty, and as they say, practice makes perfect.  She's very humble about her work, saying that it's the right combination of soil, sun, and summertime sprinkles that make her garden this spectacular.

"There's a saying about gardening that the first year you put a plant in, it sleeps, so it doesn't grow very big in its spot.  And the next year, it creeps, and so it gets a little bit bigger.  And by the third year, it leaps, and so it's growing out of bounds," says Donna.

This year, her garden is leaping.

The committee hopes that around 300 people toured Donna's garden and the eight others around town.  Three hundred people at $10 a ticket; that's $3,000 that'll keep Marquette beautiful.