5th Annual Symphony of Gardens Tour

Gardens on Tour in Natchez, Mississippi

Bluff Top Garden

Overlooking the majestic Mississippi River, Bluff Top offers unparalleled natural scenery. And owner Neil Varnell has enhanced this beauty with his interpretation of an English cottage garden. Mixed plantings of perennials and annuals fill beds along the front and surrounding perimeter of his picturesque Victorian house. A petite water lily pond, a sunken garden, and a smattering of fragrant rose bushes delight the senses. Recently, he added several parterres and borders containing roses, perennials and seasonal annuals.

Brown Garden

Clovernook (c 1890) 523 S. Union St. is the home of Walter and Missy Brown. This is one of the few estate gardens left in downtown Natchez, with over three acres of camellias, jasmine, holly, water oaks, sweet olive, crape myrtles, and what may be the largest dogwood in Mississippi. The main feature of the garden, however, is the azaleas. The owners have an original hand drawn landscaping plan, which shows garden paths along which the azaleas are planted. You can walk along Hibernia Lane, Lucy Lane, Postlewaite Path or Garden Path, where surprise lilies outline the old path, and enjoy a bit of Natchez gardening history. Pictures from the Gandy Collection will be on view, which show the garden before and during the planting of the landscape.

Williams Garden

Stroll around this 1890 Victorian cottage and experience a lush, fragrant cottage garden. Nancy is a Master Gardener, and has created a garden for gazing and cutting. She enjoys the mixture of antique and modern roses, including David Austin English Roses William Shakespeare’ and ‘Heritage’ and modern hybrid teas ‘Queen Elizabeth’ and ‘Our Lady of Guadalupe’. Nancy designed the landscape as a series of garden “rooms”. The shady side garden showcases sasanqua camellias, ginger, ferns and ajuga. The backyard includes more gingers, ajuga, hosta and hydrangeas. A wooden lattice fence supports colorful hanging baskets. Colorful irises and daylilies add their blooms, as do more roses. John and Nancy created a pathway through the adjacent woodland and shrub garden room. They also used their hillside by adding steps leading to a vegetable garden planted and maintained by John. Favorites include cucumbers, squash and beans.

The Wills Garden

This traditional Southern garden in the Historic Downtown section of Natchez represents an evolution of time and design. When Gary and Molly Wills purchased the 1890 Queen Anne cottage a year ago, they retained the existing landscape of mature oak and crape myrtle trees, camellias and azaleas. They added a brick terrace and patio for outdoor living and entertaining and also created brick borders. The garden consists of both shade and sun locations, with plants appropriate for each. Noteworthy specimens include ‘Coral Bark’ Japanese maple, ‘Yoshina’ ornamental cherry tree, numerous hosta plants, heuchera, salvia ‘Black ‘n Blue’, and ‘Crimson Queen’ azaleas. Gary uses parts of his garden as his “plant playground” where he tests new varieties for their use in his landscapes.

Brandon Hall

Travel through time on the Natchez Trace to Brandon Hall, one of the famous antebellum plantations of this region. The approach through native forest contrasts with the majestic entrance drive. Situated on 48-acres, Brandon Hall is surrounded by parkland. Paths lead through sweeping manicured lawns studded with numerous shade and ornamental trees, including many ancient oaks and magnolias. Bright yellow Louisiana irises surround a large ornamental pond. Planting beds around the plantation contain colorful annuals, changed out seasonally. Another highlight is the 60-foot wisteria walk.

The Garden at Anna's Bottom

This family retreat resembles a hunting lodge in the midst of nature. The owners asked landscape designer Gary Wills to create an ornamental garden in keeping with this setting. His informal design of two asymmetrical beds showcases easy care plants that attract birds and butterflies. Foundation plantings include ‘Pocomoke’ and ‘Baton Rouge’ dwarf weeping crape myrtle shrubs, burning bush, Japanese blueberry, possumhaw holly, vitex, and variegated pittosporum. They’re accented with salvia, verbena, echinacea, hollyhocks and foxgloves. Garden visitors are invited to stroll the house’s decks to enjoy the view of wildlife ponds below.

Holder Garden

The 1850 Warren-Erwin Home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Mississippi. A unique planter’s home in the vernacular Greek Revival Style, it is situated within two miles of Washington, Mississippi on a Spanish land grant property of 30 acres called Sheriff’s Retreat Plantation. It was the perfect setting to relocate the Holder’s family home from Union Church, Mississippi. Incorporated into the landscape are “found objects” associated with both the Warren – Erwin Home and the Sheriff’s Retreat home place. The original gate and fence posts used in the pre Civil War landscape of Sherriff’s Retreat is in the garden as well as the original picket fence design from the Warren-Erwin home of Union Church. An antique climbing, white rose grows supported by the “water shelf” on the front porch as it did in Union Church. Since moving the house in 1980, the grounds have evolved into a country garden reminiscent of a 19th century style. Many of the plants’ beginnings are from our grandmothers. The landscape displays mature trees and azaleas, a pond, a wisteria arbor, a kitchen herb garden and over one hundred camellias.

Jordan Garden at Cedar Grove Plantation

The history and charm of centuries-old Cedar Grove Plantation enticed Lyda and Charles Jordan to move from their contemporary 12-acre house and gardens to Cedar Grove Plantation which they own and operate as a Bed and Breakfast. Mature red-tipped photinia hedges mark the entrance. Visitors can stroll the grounds of what had once been a 900-acre working plantation and view sweeping vistas of lawns studded with centuries-old cedar, magnolia and pecan trees. Landscape beds are filled with colorful annuals, perennials including masses of daylilies, herbs and vegetables. Garlic, planted more than a hundred years ago, continues to thrive beneath the trees. Old heritage irises and Spanish dagger plants (Yucca gloriosa), some more than a century old, surround the large trunks of other trees. A picturesque pond nearby is flanked by majestic cypress trees. A nature trail meanders through the wooded landscape, past a small cemetery, the burial site for Absalom and Clarissa Sharp, original owners of Cedar Grove Plantation Peek into the walled garden enclosing the swimming pool to enjoy tropical plants, ferns, Mexican heather and colorful and fragrant flowers. A courtyard surrounded by acanthus, hydrangeas, azaleas, hostas and a host of other mature plants is a shady retreat, punctuated by color bowls and containers.