You’re invited to the fourth annual Intown Atlanta GNPS Native Garden Tour. Tickets include admission to five habitats.
Register for this day of self-guided tours and get inspired about adding native plants to your yard or patio. The gardens are located in North Druid Hills and Decatur. Visit each garden in any order on June 7 between 9:30 am and 3:30 pm, and learn from the homeowner or primary gardener and GNPS volunteers who will be on site to answer questions.
Four are private urban gardens brimming with native plants. The fifth is a neighborhood pocket park. Each is a certified GNPS Native Plant Habitat, created to support pollinators and other wildlife.
This tour has sold out in the past, so invite your friends and family and get your tickets early! Volunteers and children under 18 attend free.
The garden tour is Intown Atlanta’s major annual fundraising event. Ticket sales support our educational, restoration, and advocacy activities focused on inspiring Atlanta to grow and preserve native plants. We also warmly invite you to make an additional donation to our chapter when you register for the tour. Your support makes our all-volunteer-led work possible!
Not Yet a GNPS Member?
Join GNPS and save $5 on your ticket, plus become eligible for other member-only events, including plant rescues and small group visits to newly certified gardens. Your GNPS membership supports work on native plants throughout the state.
A brochure that includes the addresses and property descriptions will be emailed to ticket holders one week before the event. This is a rain or shine event.
Our 2025 Garden Tour Sponsors:
2025 Garden Tour Featured Gardens
Garden 1
For the past 20 years, the owners of this Lindmoor Woods property have been rewilding their half-acre corner. Their garden, which consists of plants from GNPS plant rescues, local purchases, and seeding, serves as a joyful working experiment in high-biodiversity ecological landscaping.
The front garden features small shrubs, grasses and perennials, including Coreopsis, Spigelia, Butterfly Weed and Wild Bergamot. A bog garden attracts many neighbors stopping to ask about the pitcher plants. The rear and side areas of the yard contain a diversity of mature native trees supplemented with understory trees, shrubs, ferns, perennials, and spring ephemerals. The couple has implemented other green building measures on the property including a large greenhouse, green roofs, a rainwater collection system, and greywater recycling.
Garden 2
In 2000, the owners of this 0.9 acre home in Clairmont Heights of Decatur began clearing the English Ivy and turf grass that covered the property. The large diversity of native plants that now covers 90% of the property was made possible by participation in numerous GNPS rescues.
An emphasis was placed on creating groundcovers, including Allegheny Spurge, Partridgeberry, Shuttleworth Ginger, and Woodland Stonecrop. Gardens are shade or part shade/sun. Rock gardens and a rain garden accommodate special environments. Featured herbaceous plants include a variety of sedges, grasses and ferns, plus Allegheny-spurge, Tennessee Coneflower, Canada Lily, Stokes Aster, Whorled Coreopsis, Alumroot, Wild Geranium, and Sundrops.
Garden 3
Noise from Clairmont Road motivated the owner of this North Druid Hills house to begin planting trees and shrubs in his front yard as a sound buffer. He began to discover his own design style, initially incorporating mostly non-native species. Volunteering with Trees Atlanta connected him with smart folks following a different path. As he participated in planting, pruning, and restoration projects, he learned to identify and love native species and to remove invasive plants like ivy and privet.
Over the next 25 years, he planted as many native plants as he could fit on his one-third acre lot and got rid of non-native species. He found his purpose in growing his very own forest, with trees that include Kentucky Coffee, Sassafras, Black Gum, Longleaf Pine, and many Oaks and Hickories. Recently, he has been working on creating a stumpery garden to incorporate dead wood as a design and habitat element. His yard now boasts about 40 native tree and 70 native plant species, serving as a beautiful, thriving mini-arboretum.
Garden 4
A lifelong gardener, the owner of this Decatur property finds that her garden is ever-evolving. Her training as a visual artist is reflected in her incorporation of color and pattern into the design of her landscape. In 2012, she removed overgrown Crape Myrtles and Nandinas from her front yard and replaced them with beds of pollinator plants, like Yellow Giant Hyssop, Ironweed, Bee Balm, and Goldenrod. In the expansive backyard where ivy once ran rampant, she’s created rain gardens, a hedgerow, a pond, and a bog. American Lotus, Pickerel Weed, and Marsh Fern thrive in the aquatic and riparian areas. Existing trees, including Pecans, Black Walnuts, and Hackberry, are underplanted with Hydrangeas, Viburnums, Pawpaws, ferns, sedges, and other native species.
Garden 5
| Walter’s Woods, a pocket park in Decatur, is a perfect example of what dedicated neighbors can accomplish! In 2005, residents of this Dekalb neighborhood began clearing three empty floodplain of lots of kudzu and privet. Twenty years and lots of volunteer hours later, the GNPS- and Birds Georgia-certified wildlife habitat boasts a Pawpaw grove along with other native trees including Chestnut Oak, Black Cherry, and Bigleaf Magnolia; groundcovers like Christmas Ferns, Cherokee Sedge, and Mayapples; and a wren’s nest playhouse woven from the branches of invasive species. |
| Inspired? Buy native plants & seeds from Cottage Garden Natives, Wood’s Native Nursery, and Botany Yards on the day of the tour at a pop-up sale at Walter’s Woods, or visit Beech Hollow Farm nearby.
Please come out and enjoy! Intown Atlanta Garden Tour Committee |
