'Experience Memphis Gardens': Six-week series of tours to showcase the area's beauty

In 1930, Memphis established what a Shelby County Historical Marker in Raleigh describes as the nation's "first urban beautification commission" (which continues today as Memphis City Beautiful).

With private donations and funds from President Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal" initiative, the innovative commission planted dogwoods and crape myrtles and magnolias and roses, and helped Memphis earn frequent national recognition for its beauty and cleanliness over the next couple decades.

Memphians may not boast as often about their city's beauty as they once did; they seem mostly to talk about disappointing trends in crime and sports. But perhaps their admiration for their city's appeal will blossom anew, like an azalea awakening to spring, if they participate in the first "Experience Memphis Gardens," a family-friendly series of tours and events that runs May 20 to July 2 — a nonprofit six-week showcase of more than 170 private and public gardens, nurseries, flower farms, hemp farms, hydroponic farms, orchards, parks and other green spaces in 16 neighborhoods.

In other words, "urban and suburban eclectic gardens, farms and green businesses, created by novices, sophisticated gardeners and stylish landscapers," from "the formal to the whimsical," according to a press release.

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Organized by the Cooper-Young Garden Club and sponsored in part by Urban Earth, "Experience Memphis Gardens" is an expansion of its popular annual Cooper-Young garden tour. In fact, Cooper-Young is the first neighborhood on the "Experience" schedule, with tours May 20-21.

Tours of different gardens are scheduled for every weekend (Thursday through Sunday) after that, through July 2, with most tours running from about 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. (the tours are generally self-guided). Scan the schedule at and you'll see such designations as "June 3, Germantown," "June 9, Frayser," "June 23, A New Way Aquaponics Farm," "June 30, Orange Mound," and so on.

Vendors and live music will be featured at some sites, and transportation and other forms of assistance will be available for people with mobility issues. A $20 ticket (children 14 and younger are admitted free) is good for the entire six weeks.

In most cases, the gardens are attached to the homes of proud volunteers who are eager if perhaps also a little shy about showing off the flowers, vegetables, shrubs, fountains, pathways and other features in their sometimes traditional, sometimes eccentric yards.

"This is how you turn a city around," said Kim Halyak, 66, a retired special needs teacher whose Cooper-Young garden is on the tour. "Inviting people into your neighborhoods to see your gardens is a way to combat litter and blight and mundane landscapes."

Founder of the Cooper-Young Garden Walk, Halyak said "Experience Memphis Gardens" is inspired by "Garden Walk Buffalo," a 30-year-old tradition in Buffalo, New York, that typically attracts thousands of tourists for a meander through 300-plus gardens. She said a Memphis spin on this idea "can only make Memphis a better place."

In most cases, homeowners will be present to talk with visitors and share tips about their gardens. For example, Halyak said the unusual recent severe freezes that hit Memphis have convinced her to emphasize native-to-Tennessee plants in her garden, because some of the non-natives failed to survive the winter.

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Encouraged to stay at home, "About 20 million Americans took up gardening during COVID times," she said. Increased interest in gardening also connects to increased awareness of the environment. "There's an interest in growing your own food, there's an interest in saving the planet. We're planting more natives, we're getting more intentional with our landscapes…"

Laurie Mattingly, whose large Colonial Acres garden is on the tour, is a recent convert. She said she had been a failure as a gardener until the downtime of the pandemic convinced her to get serious about growing things. "I had a little 4-by-4 garden and then in 2020 it went to about 25-by-12 and now it's about 52 feet long and 14 feet wide."

"I like the stuff that nobody else grows," said Mattingly, 46. "The weirder the better."

She said she especially enjoys odd vegetables, such as the Jimmy Nardello, "a long, sweet, snacking pepper that is frickin' delicious," and the "prairie fire," a "red-and-orange striped tomato."

"I love gardening," she said. "It's good therapy for me. I feel like getting out there and putting your hands in the dirt, it helps you reset your mind and get rid of all the anxieties you have in your head. You're not focused on what you've got to do for work on Monday."

The full schedule for "Experience Memphis Gardens" can be found at the tickets link at the website, which also offers more information. The website is experiencememphisgardens.org.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Experience Memphis Gardens: What to know about tour schedule, tickets