Gardeners across coastal Alabama will have a full slate of activities to look forward to the first weekend of April, as Mobile Botanical Gardens rolls out its popular Gallery of Gardens tour alongside a two-day visit from best-selling gardening author and television personality Brie Arthur.
The Gallery of Gardens tour, one of the nonprofit garden’s signature spring fundraisers, will showcase five private residential gardens on Friday, April 5, and Saturday, April 6. This year’s tour breaks from tradition by focusing entirely on waterfront properties in the area south of the city of Mobile known as the Peninsula of Mobile. Three of the featured gardens sit along Dog River, one borders Perch Creek, and another overlooks Mobile Bay.
Organizers say the gardens on this year’s tour offer a wide range of styles, from a mature, shaded collection of camellias to a more recently installed and curated plant palette. Visitors can expect a mix of intimate garden nooks, open entertaining spaces, container plantings and decorative garden art. Peninsula docents will be stationed throughout the tour to speak to the area’s distinctive ecological features, while Mobile County Master Gardeners will be available to help visitors identify plants and answer horticultural questions.
Gardens will be open for touring from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Friday, April 5, and from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, April 6. Advance tickets and tour maps can be purchased online through Mobile Botanical Gardens or at the garden’s office, with same-day ticket sales also available at each tour stop.
New this year, visitors can skip the driving and parking altogether by booking a seat on a guided trolley tour Saturday morning. The trolley package includes a stop for a bloody mary made from a recipe provided by Brie Arthur, a relaxed tour of the gardens, and a gourmet boxed lunch enjoyed at one of the bayfront properties before returning to Mobile Botanical Gardens in the early afternoon. Organizers note that trolley seating is limited and expected to sell out in advance.
Arthur, the weekend’s featured guest, built her career studying landscape design and horticulture at Purdue University before spending more than a decade working as a grower and propagator at nurseries around the country. Now based in North Carolina, she is known for popularizing the concept of “foodscaping,” or blending edible plants into ornamental landscaping, and appears regularly as a correspondent on the PBS series “Growing a Greener World.” Her first book, “The Foodscape Revolution,” became an Amazon best seller, and in 2017 the American Horticultural Society named her its first-ever recipient of the Emerging Horticulture Professional award. A second book, “Gardening with Grains,” is expected to be released later this year.
Arthur’s visit to Mobile Botanical Gardens will also mark her 40th birthday weekend, and she has said she is looking forward to celebrating in the Azalea City. Her programming will focus on practical ways home gardeners can grow more of their own food and flowers, including tips for engaging children in the garden, making use of small spaces with containers and patio-friendly aeroponic systems, vertical growing techniques, and alternatives to traditional mulching.
The weekend kicks off Friday, April 5, at 4:30 p.m. with a casual, family-friendly planting event on the Herb Garden hillside at Mobile Botanical Gardens, where Arthur will help install a foodscaping demonstration by tucking edible plants in among existing trees, shrubs and perennials. Attendees are invited to take part in the planting, which will be followed by a farm-to-table sampling featuring locally grown fruits, vegetables and herbs.
Later that evening, at 7 p.m., Arthur will give a presentation on “The Foodscape Revolution” as part of the garden’s Marion Deane Drummond speaker series, followed by a book signing and dessert reception.
Beyond the Gallery of Gardens weekend, several other gardening-related events are on the calendar for area residents this spring. Bellingrath Gardens in Theodore will host an Easter Egg Hunt and breakfast with the Easter Bunny on Saturday, April 13, with separate hunts organized by age group; breakfast reservations can be made by calling the gardens. And for homeowners looking to improve their lawns, a two-night “Turf School” covering the do’s and don’ts of grass care will be held April 15-16 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Jon Archer Center on Schillinger Road North in Mobile. The $10 registration fee covers a meal both nights, and organizers ask that participants register by April 9.
Additional details and ticket information for the Gallery of Gardens tour and Brie Arthur’s appearances are available through Mobile Botanical Gardens.