Midday · Summer Season · Free

Guided Walks

An hour in the Highlands Botanical Gardens with the people who know them best. Different theme, different guide, every week.

When Midday, through the summer season
Length About one hour
Cost Free and open to all
Where Highlands Botanical Gardens

Twelve acres of native plants, and a different way into them each week. Our horticulturists, gardens assistants, and visiting botanists take small groups along the paths at an easy pace, stopping wherever something is worth stopping for.

No registration, no expertise expected. Wear shoes you don’t mind getting damp.

Walks from a recent season

  • Tree Walk

    Guided tour of the gardens

    An hour among the native trees of the southern Appalachians with the person who tends them.

  • Iridescence in the Gardens

    Guided walk

    The shimmer, sheen, and structural color that turn ordinary leaves and petals into something luminous.

  • Mindfulness in the Gardens

    Guided walk

    Slow down, look closer, breathe — an unhurried walk with plenty of pauses.

  • The Flower Hunter’s Trail

    Guided walk

    Following William Bartram, who rode into these mountains in 1775 and never stopped writing about them.

  • What’s Blooming: Bog & Pollinator Gardens

    Guided walk

    Late summer in two of the most distinctive habitats in the collection.

MAY
JUN
JUL
AUG
Weekly through the summer
Stay tuned

The 2027 walk schedule is still budding out. We are hard at work on the season — give it until the sap rises.

828-526-2602