I gave a tour this Sunday. A group of garden enthusiast/ seed savers came from an hour drives away to be inspired. That was the mission. They had totally different gardening skills levels amongst them. I ended up mostly chatting with the most experienced of them during a two hour stroll past differing trees, shrubs, perennials, annuals and groundcover set-ups. And then getting questions 'from the back', so stop and explain and then got talking to most experienced again. The watering situation got highlighted. The evolution of appearing shade places got discussed, a biomass producing Silphy hedge in the annuals bit. The latest extension with food hedges, a bit syntropic/temperate agroforestry style. Etc,etc..
We quit when we'd been everywhere and lunched with the group outside under the pergola, everybody had brought something and we discussed this and that.
It was very relaxed this way, but in hindsight i think people gravitate to what they know, what they recognize in their own gardens and start chatting about how they see things. Then asked me to respond to that, so why and how got discussed. But the topics were mostly what they already know and i missed this opportunity to explain my wormcomposting system and the oxygenated compost tea making system that uses said compost and soil i take on walks.
This would have opened a pathway toward speaking of soil health and actively creating microbial and mycelial biodiversity in a deeper way.
A good thing i did was to put a paper down and have people write their names and emailadresses. So i can adress the compost and compost tea in writing. Opening the situation to dish out some plants/cuttings and seeds, spreading the garden love.
One lady said she got discouraged, but i'm happy she felt she could share this and think she might be helped with a more perennial gardening style
Al in all mission succeeded and ready for the next tour if the occasion arises.