When Ken Arthur bought his place off Davenport's Fairmount Street about five years ago, the house was a condemned rental unit and the lawn "hadn't been cut in 10 years."

The yard was so bad, in fact, that people were using it as an illegal dump, tossing in everything from broken-up concrete to barbed wire.

Today, the property is a totally different place, and the yard looks so good that it will be one of six open for free, self-guided tours Tuesday-Wednesday, June 23-24, as part of the Great Garden Showoff.

The event is sponsored by The Garden Growers, a nonprofit group that promotes community gardening. This year's Showoff celebrates gardens south of Davenport's Locust Street between Division and Fairmount streets.

Arthur's yard exemplifies what can be accomplished on a budget through hard work, said Julia Blazevic, the organization's director.

One of Arthur's trademarks is that he's a scrounger. Anytime anyone wants to get rid of something - building materials, plants, what-have-you - he looks it over to see whether he might be able to use it. He also scouts auctions and sales.

The yard work began with hauling out seven pickup loads of scrap iron and cutting down 28 junk trees, leaving the larger hackberries.

A second challenge is that the yard slopes steeply, with just one relatively level plane in the middle, so he built several retaining walls in front. He also made the yard accessible by building steps out of concrete he mixed himself.

He and Judy Cox also have installed a three-tier pond under the deck, filled window boxes and other containers with colorful annuals, and planted many kinds of perennials along the borders of their yard as well as in three distinct planting beds that they carved out of the interior.

"Every year we did a little bit more," he says. "And I've just about got it figured out so that I don't have to get off my lawn mower anymore to do any weed-whacking." By that he means they've replaced difficult-to-reach grassy areas with perennial beds.

They make liberal use of mulch and border the planting beds with rocks and chunks of broken-up asphalt and concrete that had been dumped in the yard or that they collected elsewhere.

Almost all of the plants were bought at a discount or received from friends and strangers. Arthur doesn't know many plant names, but that isn't important to him. He just wants materials that fill in, provide color and don't become invasive. Hostas are among his favorites.

Next year, he and Cox hope to plant their own baskets with annuals that they start from seed in a small greenhouse/potting shed they have attached to their garage. The shed itself was made from old patio doors and siding that others threw away.

All told, Arthur and Cox have been working on the landscape for only three years.

"It's fun to sit here and watch people stop and gawk," he says of his yard. "We get a lot of compliments."