RIPON — If you’ve ever wondered how a strawberry tree looks like, you have the perfect opportunity this Saturday to stand right next to one, and maybe even touch its unusual bark.

The Sweeney family’s garden, one of six attractions featured in this year’s Ripon Garden Tour, features not just one but several strawberry trees in various stages of maturity. One of the trees located in the spacious woodsy and secluded back-yard garden even has a few bunches of fruit dangling from its leafy branches, although since it’s only summer the globules are still green. In the fall, they will erupt into an explosion of strawberry-like colors, hence the tree’s common name.

That’s just one of the many visual highlights in the Sweeneys’ expansive private Eden. The crape myrtles, including the more robust Muskogee variety, are still blooming at their peak, for instance. While the delicate flowers appear to be part of the first wave of late spring or summer blossoms, Mike Sweeney says these are actually the second wave. There’s a simple trick involved in coaxing plants and trees to bloom again soon after the first flowers are spent, said Mike Sweeney, owner of Mike Sweeney Landscaping and the self-described gardener in the family. That’s another thing that garden tour visitors will be able to get out of the garden tour – valuable gardening do’s and don’ts.

The Sweeney garden also will be the perfect place to find out more about such rare plant and tree specimens in the valley as the Aptos blue and Soquel redwood trees, the arbutus marina (strawberry trees), coastal and living oaks, dwarf weeping redwoods, just to name a few.

Sweeney also shows how one can create cozy gardens in different macroclimates. His home’s back yard, for example, bears the brunt of the afternoon sun in the summer. But you hardly notice the triple-digit heat when you are in front of the outdoor fireplace, or reading a book by the waterfall feeding the koi-filled pond in the other corner of the back yard. To achieve that cool effect, Sweeney planted a stand of trees – redwoods, oaks, strawberry trees, Japanese maples, and Muskogee crape myrtles to name a few – instead of a fence or wall to deflect the sun’s heat.

Similar trees are also prominently displayed in the expansive gardens in front of house. Liquidambars, Aptos blue and Soquel redwood trees line the long, sweeping driveway that ends in a circular garden a few steps from the front door dominated by a pair of towering redwoods. More Aptos blue and Soquel redwood trees line the road in front of the house. While it may be difficult for the untrained eye to differentiate the two redwoods, Sweeney said the main difference is that the Aptos is a “deeper blue” and usually taller.

Sweeney said he designed his garden to create a forest-like appeal.

“If you can’t live in the forest, bring the forest to you,” he explained.

But it’s a forest spread that comes complete with creature comforts and amenities, making it an entertainer’s paradise as well. In fact, it was here where they celebrated five years ago the wedding of their daughter Megan Thompson, with 300 guests attending. There’s an outdoor shower and bathroom area camouflaged by plenty of plants that he built near the front and back gardens. This structure is also easily accessible to what he calls “a privacy patio” off the master bedroom dominated by towering palm trees, bird of paradise, climbing bougainvilleas on a trellis, and other tropical plants.

Mike Sweeney has been in business for nearly three decades. He did custom farming initially, with his business in Modesto. Later, he sold the farming business and went into landscaping. His work crew includes son Shawn, 24, who works for his father when he is not busy in his job as a firefighter with California Fire Department. Sweeney said his wife, Gail, who owns a Pilates studio in Modesto, lets him enjoy his green thumb hobby.

“She just enjoys it,” he said of his wife’s contribution to his garden creations.