Sandhills Horticultural Gardens: Everything you need to know

If you love visiting botanical gardens when you’re on vacation, you need to check out the American Horticultural Society Reciprocal Admissions Program. You purchase an annual pass at your local botanical garden and receive complementary admission into over 100 gardens around the country.

We didn’t see any students when we went, but we did see their handiwork. And they’re doing a great job maintaining the 12 sections of the garden.

Yes, 12. The garden is split up into a dozen sections. But don’t worry. You’ll have time to see all of them. If you want to. You can still enjoy the garden without stopping at every garden.

And honestly, you can skip some. Like the fruit and vegetable garden. If you have a backyard garden, you know what growing vegetables looks like. The only time I really like an edible garden at a botanical garden was the San Antonio Botanical Garden because it had an educational kitchen where a volunteer gave out food that was made with the vegetables in the garden (we had a great salad) and then explained the why of every ingredient.

When you drive in, the Ball Gardens visitors’ center will be on your right and the pollinator garden. The latter is on the map, but it’s not on the official list of gardens. I guess because it’s outside of the garden’s entrance. But, don’t miss it. It has the cutest statue of children doing ring around the rosy.

That’s actually just one of the statues you’ll see throughout the garden.

If the visitors’ center is open, you can stop in for a map and educational materials. If you skip the center, there’s lots of signage throughout the garden so you’ll be able to get around easily. I did, however, take a photo of a map when I entered the garden, just to be safe.

Park your car in the free parking lot just past the visitors’ center and walk behind it to the Hoad Children’s Garden. That’s actually a large fun place with tons of space for kids to run around and play.

There are cute structures, sort of like mini houses, for kids to play pretend in. Plus spaces for them to learn about gardening (although, without a guide there, that’s just more imaginative play).

Past that is the Hackley Woodland Garden, filled with woodland and shade bearing plants. Depending on when you go, you can see azaleas in bloom here. Or, if it’s during the hot summer, you might just see lots of leaves and not too many blooms.

The Fruit & Vegetable Garden is to the left of that, so you can glance over at it as you pass by.

At the end of those gardens, you’ll have a choice. Head left to take the Desmond Native Wetland Trail Garden, which is a wooden boardwalk that will take you through poplars and pines, or head right to the Atkins Hillside Garden, with a winding river rock stream with waterfalls and wooden bridges.

If you’re short on time, head to the right. Not that walking through pine trees isn’t that interesting, but you’re in Pinehurst. You’re going to have lots of other opportunities to see pine trees.

The Atkins Hillside Garden ends in a loop that brings you to see the Ebersole Holly Garden and the Margaret Ambrose Japanese Garden.

The former is actually the original garden. It established the Sandhills Horticultural Gardens in 1978 and is the largest accessible holly collection on the East Coast.

I’m gonna be honest. The builders added two huge holly bushes to our landscaping before we moved into our house. And I pulled one to plant our blueberry bush and I’ll probably end up pulling the other because our grapevine needs that space.

Holly bushes are really pretty in the winter when the berries are out, but during the rest of the year, they’re just a tall bush with spiky leaves. It’s not that impressive.

But what is impressive, and where we spent most of our time, was the Margaret Ambrose Japanese Garden. The three acre garden has a tsukubai (a Japanese waterbasin used for ritual hand washing) near the entrance, an azumaya (a wooden pergola overlooking parts of the garden), and a zen garden (with seating for viewing and contemplation).

There are also Japanese maples and Japanese black pines within the garden.

Regardless of which garden you see second, you have to pass back through the Atkins Hillside Garden and cross some wooden bridges over water to end up at the side of the garden behind Steed Hall, the classroom building for the Landscape Gardening Programs.

There are a few greenhouses behind the hall, but those aren’t really anything you’ll want to access. They definitely appear to be for classwork more than for visitors. There are a ton of plants growing in pots inside and beautiful flowers in front. So it is eye catching. But it’s also across from the Rose Garden displays, and I bet the variety of old roses will garner more of your attention than the greenhouses will.

Behind there is the Succulent Garden, which is walled in to create a microclimate of a dessert so that the succulents, which are usually found in a Southwest desert, can thrive in the Sandhills region.

Then, there’s the Annual Garden, which is changed annually by the college’s students. Fun fact: Annual plants die annually, only surviving for one growing season. Perennial plants, on the other hand, regrow every spring.

Behind the Annual Garden is the Sir Walter Raleigh Garden, a one-acre formal English garden. Within that garden are a ceremonial and fountain courtyard, a holly maze, a sunken garden, an herb garden, plus a few additional gardens.

And finally, there’s Conifer Garden, which are basically just trees. Conifers are cone-bearing seed plants, which sounds fancy, but it’s basically fir trees. So, if you’re getting tired because you’re at the end of this large, spacious garden, you can just smile at the fir trees and carry on with your day.

Sandhills Horticultural Gardens: Frequently Asked Questions

More Gardens In North Carolina:

If you’re traveling in North Carolina, you have a lot of opportunities to visit different gardens. There’s the Sarah P. Duke Gardens in Durham, which is on Duke’s campus, and is also free.

The Cape Fear Botanical Garden in Fayetteville and Airlie Gardens in Wilmington are both free if you have the aforementioned American Horticultural Society pass. If you don’t have the pass, you will have to pay an admission charge.