5 Great Reasons to Visit Cheekwood Botanical Gardens!

I wanted to share a few more pictures from my visit to Cheekwood Botanical Gardens the other day but also wanted to give you a Friday 5 post so I thought why not put the two together?  For today I'll give you 5 Great reasons to visit Cheekwood and show you some of the great features I saw during my brief visit on Monday.

Awesome plantings that are changed with the seasons!  What could be more seasonal this fall than the quintessential mum?  Cheekwood has an amazing display of mums planted enmass.  Backdrops of other perennials really enable the colorful mums to pop out at the visitor.  Nearly any time something is planted in a mass planting it impresses! The backdrops in the picture to the right include canna lily and Salvia leucantha.

Ninebark

Ninebark

Cheekwood is a great place to learn about new plants, different plants, or how to use a plant.  Nearly every plant or plant group is labeled to help visitors identify them.  The plant diversity is amazing.  I overhead one person mentioning how when they were first gardening they came to Cheekwood to identify plants from her garden that she did not know.  Not only do you learn the identity of the plants but you also can see how they were used in the gardens and what plants they were planted with which is extremely helpful.

Themed events happen all the time at Cheekwood.  Right now themed scare crow decorate the garden ranging from books like "Where the Wild Things Are", to local art production groups, and even to local doctors offices.  OK...you may not think a local doctors office could offer much as far as a scarecrow is concerned, but when it's in the form of a giant syringe man who looks more happy to give you a shot it could be pretty scary!  They have had trains featured at Cheekwood this year in addition to tree houses and a pumpkin patch.

The Japanese gardens are stunning too.  I didn't get to travel through them since I had to drive my son in his stroller over steps and gravel walkways but even from a distance the Japanese garden was impressive!  Rounded hills nestle plantings of evergreens and perennials while Japanese styled structures give the area the proper dose of character!



Tranquil water features make great locations for photos or just for having a picnic.  A stream with bridges feeds into two ponds that are connected by a waterfall. Cheekwood achieves a good blend of open spaces, planting areas, and landscape features.

I hope you have a chance before these gorgeous fall days we've been having run out to stop by and spend a couple hours in the Cheekwood Botanical Garden!

Here are a few other Friday Fives Posts you may find interesting.

Autumn Scenes from Cheekwood Botanical Gardens

Yesterday I traveled up to the Cheekwood Botanical Gardens to listen to Tina from In the Garden. She was doing a talk on Winter Gardening and all that it entails so we thought it would be a great opportunity for us to visit with her and check out the gardens while we were there. We also visited with Gail from Clay and Limestone at the meeting too. It's always fun to visit with other garden bloggers!

Cheekwood Botanical Garden has to be counted as one of Middle Tennessee's finest treasures. Their programs are always dynamic and interesting like the Chuhuly exhibit last year or the treehouses this year. Unfortunately the light was beginning to fade when we arrived at 5:30 PM and my pictures will be somewhat less than what they could have been with the right lighting but I think you'll be able to see some of awesome job that the Cheekwood crew does.

From where I entered the garden I saw this display.  While still pumping out the blooms some of the flowers had fallen.

Just beyond that display was this group of mums planted enmass.  They used a combination of cannas and Salvia leucantha as a backdrop.

 On the opposite side of the walkway the mums were backed by 'Black Pearl' ornamental peppers.

And further down the coleus served as the backdrop.

Down the sidewalk was this covered walkway area.  Mums lined the pathway on both sides with plantings of elephant ears accenting the shady areas. There were various scarecrows around the gardens on display.  The one to the left was Mama Lama.

At the end of this garden was this tall planter back with arborvitae and ornamental grasses...and of course - more mums!

Cheekwood had treehouses on display this year which have since be moved except for this one.  If I remember correctly it was the Walden Tree House.  I would love this in our backyard - maybe even more than my kids would!

I'll share some more pictures from Cheekwood later this week including some shots of their Japanese Garden and a couple water features!