Things to do / Travel Guide
From gardens with grazing horses to prim and proper estate grounds, at the botanical gardens of the Central Kentucky and Tennessee region you'll walk through bluegrass, tour Opryland, and enjoy a kind of “riding” that doesn't require you to saddle up.
Central Kentucky Botanical Gardens and Arboretums
Of course you can see horses at the Kentucky Horse Park Arboretum in Lexington, but when it comes to trees, you can also keep your expectations high. The arboretum contains more than 1,000 trees of more than 75 species (half native to Kentucky), many of which date back to the 1700s. Trees are marked with common and scientific names, making self-guided tours enjoyable as well as educational.
How about taking a walk across Kentucky in just under an hour? At the University of Kentucky Arboretum in Lexington you can do just that! In addition to their wide array of ornamental and edible plant gardens, spanning nearly 100 acres, the “Walk Across Kentucky” area presents the native flora of Kentucky's seven landscapes: Bluegrass, Knobs, Cumberland Mountains, Appalachian Plateaus, Mississippian Plateaus and Outer Nashville Basin, Shawnee Hills, Mississippian Embayment and Alluvial Basin.
You can't really claim you know Kentucky unless you can sing a bar of Steven Foster's ballad “My Old Kentucky Home.” And if you can't sing it, you can at least say you've toured the grounds that led to its inspiration. My Old Kentucky Home State Park, in Bardstown, includes an 1818 mansion (that belonged to Foster's cousins) as well as 285 acres, and formal gardens.
Many other lavish Kentucky estates and mansions are situated on lush, beautifully-manicured gardens. If you enjoy the combination of ornate architecture and lush landscape, there are several Kentucky homes you may want to visit: Ashland (the Henry Clay estate), in Lexington (600 acres with formal gardens); Historic Locust Grove, in Louisville (55 acres); Whitehall, also in Louisville (2-acre formal Florentine garden); and the McDowell House, Apothecary, and Gardens, in Danville.
Central Tennessee Botanical Gardens
The 30,000-square foot Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art, in Nashville, is a Georgian mansion situated on the 55-acre Tennessee Botanical Gardens that once belonged to the Cheek family. Today the gardens include a unique cloud forest simulation exhibit, an overwhelmingly diverse collection of orchids (500 species), narcissus (300 cultivars), and one of the largest collections of trillium in the U.S. (more than 50 species). Walk through the well-pruned Japanese Gardens or along the eight-acre Sculpture Trail under upper canopy shade trees. Also in Nashville, the antebellum Belmont Mansion, located on Belmont University campus, is situated on beautifully-manicured gardens featuring five cast-iron gazebos as well as marble statues. But no experience in Nashville is complete without a touch of the Opry. And, like everything Opry-esque, Opryland Hotel's Delta and Cascade Conservatory was designed to impress. Located inside the Opryland Hotel are two not-to-be-missed horticultural extravaganzas. The Cascade Conservatory is a 4½-acre indoor tropical garden complete with a four-story waterfall which, despite the roof overhead, manages to pass itself off as a rainforest. The Delta, with a grandiose domed roof, incorporates a gurgling indoor river.
For an informal stroll amidst bicentennial trees, set aside some time to wander through Nashville's Vanderbilt University Arboretum. With more than 300 rolling green acres, you will find yourself in the company of 300 varieties of plants, shrubs, and native central Tennessee tree varieties including hedge maple, magnolias, green hawthorn, and September elm.
While in this part of the country “riding” usually refers to horses, when it comes to gardens, “riding” is a winding, desultory path that twists pleasantly through natural landscape. At Reflection Riding Arboretum and Botanical Gardens, in Chattanooga, you can enjoy 375 acres of more than 1,000 species of plants, including ferns, native southeast Tennessee trees, and over 300 different types of wildflowers. And while you're in Chattanooga, you can casually chug over to the Chattanooga Choo Choo Gardens to enjoy more than 800 rosebushes, nearly 200 varieties of daylilies, a lovely herb garden, and a water garden, home to 400 fish. You'll see a heck of a lot more than rocks at the Rock City Gardens when you hike to the top of Lookout Mountain (Georgia side). These stunning gardens comprised of over 400 plant species surround massive ancient rock formations and the backdrop of sweeping panoramas historically billed as the “See 7 States View.”
Nashville, Louisville and Lexington in Central Kentucky and Tennessee
Botanical-Gardens
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