After a two-year break, the Cape Fear Garden Club’s Azalea Garden Tour returns with 13 gardens open to the public for self-guided tours over the weekend of April 8 – 10, 2022.
Where Flowers Bloom, So Does Hope, the 69th Azalea Garden Tour, begins at 9:30 a.m. on Friday, April 8, with the free ribbon-cutting ceremony at the home of Kate and Tom Fetzer. The Fetzer garden is accessed from Greenville Loop to Old Military Road, to the end, right onto Quail Run Road, second house on the right (road side parking.)
This year’s tour includes two public gardens, Lebanon Chapel and Harbor Way at Wrightsville Beach, and 11 private gardens. The private gardens include chickens (garden #7, Sundberg), tapped longleaf pines, a natural swimming hole (garden #2, McRoy), and a certified wildlife habitat (garden #1, Parnell). Every garden will have a scheduled educational opportunity at different times.
“For example, it’s exciting to come and learn how to have a certified wildlife habitat,” says Garden Club publicity committee member Barbara Downing.
The Azalea Ambassadors, young ladies and young men who serve as greeters and guides, will be in each garden, except when the education moments are going on. The ladies will be dressed in Carolina Herrera-inspired skirts.
The tour gardens are located from historic downtown through Forest Hills to Wrightsville Beach. Two of the gardens are on Quail Run Road off Greenville Loop, four are on Forest Hills Drive, there’s one each on Colonial Drive, College Acres and South Live Oak Parkway, and two are located on Grace Street in Carolina Heights, Wilmington.
“These two houses next to each other are family that share a drive, 510 and 512,” Downing says.
A detailed map is in each ticket booklet. The gardens should be in all their glory in April and can be seen until 5 p.m. each day of the tour. The organizers advertise that uneven terrain can be expected in most of the gardens.
Plein air artists will be at their easels in the 13 gardens during the tour. Their work will be available for sale from a website listed in the ticket booklet. The artists donate a portion of their sales to the Cape Fear Garden Club, Inc. a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, to use for local educational, environmental and beautification grants in New Hanover County. Grants will be awarded during the October 2022 general meeting. Children under the age of 12 are admitted free of charge. No pets are allowed in the gardens.