A little over an hour from Raleigh on the campus of Sandhills Community College in Pinehurst waits the beautiful Sandhills Horticultural Garden, another hidden gem in the lineup of public gardens in the Piedmont.
Our visit, on a rainy weekday morning in late May, gave us the garden to ourselves for the most part. We took our time, paused frequently, and enjoyed a relaxing stroll. As the photos herein indicate these gardens focus on trees, shrubs, and hardscape rather than extensive displays of blooms. Water features and statuary figure prominently in the lineup.
Interested parties can access the garden’s website for location, visitor information, and garden descriptions: Sandhills Horticultural Gardens.
I’ll walk you through some of what we captured using images taken with both cell phones and a digital camera. The rain bounced between steady and drizzle, but that only added energy to our adventure.
Shawn captured this shot, and to me it reflects the excuses we make for not getting out in the garden – it’s raining, my knees hurt, weather’s too hot, my schedule’s full–all the prison bars we make for ourselves. We put all that aside, grabbed our rain coats and explored.
Shawn used to carry a camera in the garden though now her iPhone works so well we set up cloud storage and she can snap images to capture the moments. I can only use a subset of those shots in the write-up though, and picking the winners is hard. This time I caught her in her element with my cell phone which was an Android of some kind.
The garden includes an array of sound toys where children (or in this case an adult) can make beautiful music. Introducing our children to the joys of the garden represents a gift we leave to future generations.
I was mesmerized by this cascading stream with its reflecting ponds and bridges. The sound of water in the garden adds a dimension of tranquility.
If you’ve never considered a water feature for your garden why not take another look at the options offered to homeowners today from simple patio barrels to solar-powered fountain.
Paths draw the visitor deeper into the gardens. Sandhills Horticultarl Gardens offers a wetlands boardwalk as well as formal concrete walkways.
Who could pass up a chance to browse through to see what’s happening in this garden?
Brick work and formal settings mark this garden.
Of course a southern garden must have a magnolia!
Shawn posed for me in the children’s garden. Plan to set aside some space in your garden area for the kids and grandkids to experiment if you can. The investment will bear interest far into the future.
Some fun statues wait to greet visitors.
Shawn jumped into join the ring in my favorite of the garden’s statues.
The feet may be tired and a little damp, but the smiles are real. We had a great time. Men, are you looking for a date idea? Plan a visit to Sandhills Horticultural Gardens, but be forewarned that your spouse might come away with ideas for your home gardens. And kindly leave a contribution in the slot inside the Visitors Center. If we love our public gardens we must help care for them.
Note from the editor: The return trip takes you by Smithfield’s Barbeque if you like that sort of thing and we do. After all this was a date!
