Among the six stops on the tour: Linda Vaccaro’s garden at the corner of Lake Avenue and Harvard Road. (Click photos to enlarge)

As noted below, today’s edition of Red Bank oRBit has a feature about the Two Rivers Garden Tour and its return to its horticultural roots as it shelves a traditional companion antiques show this year because of economic conditions.

But it’s no longer the only flower show in town.

Now in its 59th year of existence, the Garden Club of Fair Haven is holding its first garden tour on Saturday, with stops at five residences and another at the Harding Bird Sanctuary on Ridge Road.

“Let’s up the ante,” says a smiling Dee Sincox, club president.

Taken together, the simultaneous, geographically overlapping events may drive flower lovers to distraction — or nirvana.

The pergola in the Vaccaro’s backyard.

Here’s how the club describes the event:

The tour sites include an impeccably landscaped riverfront home, a former backyard dog run turned into a park-like formal garden, a small-scale, formal English garden, a circa-1800’s restored fisherman’s cottage on the Navesink River with several gardens, and a charming corner property with terrace, pond, pergola, perennial garden, flowering trees and shrubs.

The purpose of the tour is not simply to wow visitors, says Sincox. “What we’re trying to do is to educate people, show them what they can do with their backyards,” she says.

The residential stops are:

• 4 Woodmere Avenue, Rumson

• 34 Buttonwood Drive, Fair Haven

• 863 River Road, Fair Haven

• 32 Holly Lane, Fair Haven

• 195 Lake Avenue, Fair Haven

The bird sanctuary, a nature preserve maintained by the club, is also part of the event.

Proceeds are used for a variety of local and national charitable efforts, including donations to Clean Ocean Action and Habitat for Humanity. Some 180 advance tickets had been sold as of Wednesday, Sincox says.

The tour is from 10a to 3p, with tickets priced at $20 and available at the Fair Haven firehouse on River Road; admission to the bird sanctuary alone is free. Children under 12 and pets are not permitted on the residential tour. The rain date is Sunday.

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