April at Bellingrath Gardens: Car Shows, Easter Egg Hunts and a Rescue-Run 5K

Bellingrath Gardens and Home packed its April calendar with four weekend events, giving families plenty of reasons to make the trip to the 900-acre estate along the Fowl River in Theodore. The schedule spans everything from chrome-and-polish car culture to sunrise worship to a dog-friendly fun run, a spread that showcases the range the Gulf Coast’s most famous garden has built over its nine decades.

April arrives at Bellingrath as one of the most beautiful months of the year, with spring blooms still showing across the cultivated grounds and the azalea season that draws peak crowds winding down into the lush greens of early summer. Layering four special weekends on top of that backdrop makes the month a magnet for visitors from Mobile, Baldwin County and beyond.

The April Lineup

The month opened Saturday, April 6, with the Camellia Classic Open Car Show running 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The show transforms the estate’s grounds into an open-air exhibition of classic, antique and specialty vehicles, drawing enthusiasts and casual admirers alike to wander among rows of restored Americana with the gardens as a backdrop.

The following Saturday, April 13, brought the ever-popular Easter Egg Hunt on the Great Lawn from 9 a.m. to noon. The event has become a springtime staple for Mobile-area families, with children sweeping the lawn for eggs in one of the most scenic settings any egg hunt could ask for — the sweeping formal grounds that have made Bellingrath a postcard of the Gulf Coast for generations.

An Easter Sunrise Service was set for April 21 at 6:30 a.m., carrying on one of the estate’s most enduring traditions. The dawn service on Easter morning, held as the light comes up over the gardens, draws worshippers from across the region each year and ranks among the most meaningful dates on Bellingrath’s calendar.

The month closed Saturday, April 27, with the Wiggle Waggle Rescue Run benefiting the Animal Rescue Foundation from 8 a.m. to noon. The family- and pet-friendly event combines exercise, adoption awareness and fundraising for the rescue organization, giving dog owners a chance to walk or run the estate’s grounds alongside their four-legged companions.

Year-Round Destination

Bellingrath Gardens and Home opens 362 days a year, closing only for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day, with hours of 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. — extended to 9 p.m. nightly during the Magic Christmas in Lights season. That schedule makes it one of the most consistently available attractions on the Gulf Coast, a place that reinvents itself with every season.

Sixty-five of its roughly 900 acres are cultivated with annual blooms and continuous color, and guests can tour the Bellingrath Home, the Rose Garden, the Asian-American Garden, formal garden terraces and the Dwight Harrigan/ExxonMobil Ecological Bayou Boardwalk. The grounds also host special events and weddings throughout the year.

Each garden space offers a distinct experience. The Rose Garden remains one of the Southeast’s great rose collections, the Asian-American Garden winds through the estate’s natural landscape along Fowl River, and the bayou boardwalk carries visitors over the wetland ecosystem that surrounds the manicured grounds — a chance to see the native coastal environment of cypress, waterfowl and marsh life just steps from the formal terraces.

The Bellingrath Home itself, built in 1935, stands furnished as its original owners lived in it, and house tours are included with many admission packages. The story of the estate begins with Walter Bellingrath, a Mobile Coca-Cola bottler whose fishing camp on the Fowl River grew, at the direction of his wife Bessie, into one of the great gardens of the American South. Opened to the public in 1932, the estate has welcomed millions of visitors since and operates today as a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the Bellingraths’ legacy.

A Calendar Built for Families

The April slate reflects a broader strategy that has kept Bellingrath relevant across generations. Beyond the seasonal blooms — azaleas in spring, roses into summer, chrysanthemums and the renowned mum display each fall, and Magic Christmas in Lights from late November through the holidays — the estate’s special events give locals recurring reasons to visit rather than reserving it for out-of-town guests.

The Camellia Classic, for instance, nods to the camellia’s status as the South’s signature winter bloom and a plant with deep roots in Mobile’s horticultural history. The Easter Egg Hunt and Sunrise Service tap traditions the estate has hosted for decades. And the Wiggle Waggle Rescue Run connects the gardens to the Animal Rescue Foundation, a Mobile-area organization dedicated to rescuing and rehoming animals — an annual partnership that turns a morning on the lawn into support for a cause.

For families planning an April visit, the events offer different rhythms: the car show for enthusiasts and photographers, the egg hunt for young children, the sunrise service for worshippers, and the rescue run for pet owners. Many visitors make a day of it, combining an event with garden and home tours, lunch on the grounds, and a walk on the bayou boardwalk.

The estate’s Theodore location — just off Highway 90-98 south of Mobile — places it within easy reach of both the city and the Eastern Shore, and its position along Fowl River has made it a favored stop for boaters as well, who can tie up at the estate’s dock along the river that borders the property.

Admission details, event schedules and tour times are available through Bellingrath Gardens and Home, which recommends checking the calendar ahead of weekend visits — particularly in spring, when special events and peak blooms combine to draw the year’s largest crowds.

Garden tourism is a quiet economic engine for the Mobile area, and Bellingrath is its anchor. The estate draws bus tours, garden clubs, school groups and international visitors across its calendar, and its year-round operation supports jobs and spending in Theodore and greater Mobile County. Its spring season in particular overlaps with the region’s other signature draws — Mardi Gras’s aftermath, the Fairhope Arts and Crafts Festival, azalea trail season across the city — making March and April the busiest stretch on the property’s calendar.

The April events also highlight the estate’s role as a community gathering space rather than merely a museum. The Great Lawn that hosts the Easter Egg Hunt, the parking areas that fill with car show entries, and the pathways that wind through the rescue run all get repurposed weekend by weekend, and locals have come to treat the gardens as an extension of their own seasonal traditions.

The Ecological Bayou Boardwalk, named for longtime supporters Dwight Harrigan and the ExxonMobil foundation’s contributions, deserves special mention for visitors who have never taken it. The boardwalk crosses a genuine coastal bayou environment — brackish marsh, tidal channels and native woodland — with interpretive signage explaining the ecosystem that makes the Fowl River watershed unique. It is a favorite of birders, and its shaded stretches offer a cool retreat on warm spring afternoons.

Photographers, meanwhile, mark Bellingrath’s seasons on their own calendars. The estate’s combination of formal gardens, waterfront views and historic architecture makes it one of the most photographed places on the Gulf Coast, and April’s light and blooms are considered among its most photogenic conditions of the year.

Planning a Visit

Visitors planning to attend any of the April events should note the morning start times — the rescue run and egg hunt both begin at 8 and 9 a.m. respectively, and the Easter Sunrise Service starts at 6:30 a.m., well before the gardens’ standard opening. Gates and activity areas are typically staffed early on event days, and arriving ahead of the scheduled start is the best way to secure parking close to the entrance.

Combination tickets covering gardens admission and home tours are available, and the estate’s cafe on the grounds serves lunch during regular hours. For those who cannot make the April events, the calendar continues through the year — with summer evening hours, the fall mum display, and the beloved Magic Christmas in Lights season ensuring that Bellingrath remains, as it has since 1932, a garden for every season on the Gulf Coast.

The Camellia Classic Open Car Show has grown into one of the region’s most anticipated automotive gatherings, drawing entries from across the central Gulf Coast. Classes typically span everything from pre-war antiques to modern muscle, with awards handed out in the afternoon and owners on hand to share the stories behind their restorations. For many attendees, the show is as much about the conversations as the cars.

The Easter Egg Hunt, meanwhile, sells out its appeal simply by existing where it does. Thousands of eggs scattered across the Great Lawn, the estate’s blooms at their spring peak and a morning start that beats the heat make it a tradition many Mobile-area families repeat year after year — children who hunted eggs on the lawn a generation ago now bring their own kids back to do the same.

The Easter Sunrise Service holds a place of special honor in the estate’s history. Worshippers gather in the dark of early morning, and the service concludes as sunlight spreads across the gardens — a setting that has made it one of the most moving Easter observances in the Mobile area, and one that requires no ticket beyond the resolve to be there before dawn.

The Wiggle Waggle Rescue Run closes the month with the estate’s most informal event, where leashes and lawn chairs are the dress code and every well-behaved dog is welcome. Proceeds support the Animal Rescue Foundation’s rescue, care and adoption work, and the event doubles as a showcase for adoptable animals hoping to leave with new families.

Together the four weekends capture what Bellingrath’s founders might never have imagined for their fishing camp-turned-garden, but exactly what its stewards have cultivated: a public place where the Gulf Coast marks its seasons, its holidays and its causes — one April Saturday at a time.