Daniel Boone Native Gardens
Daniel Boone Native Gardens
This quiet oasis in an urban landscape welcomes visitors daily, dawn until dusk, and is minutes from downtown Boone. Home to over 200 varieties of native plants across ten acres, the gardens also host community gatherings including plant sales, hands-on workshops, traditional music concerts, outdoor yoga classes and an annual “Fairy Day.”
The Backstory:
In 1957, landscape architect H. Stuart Ortloff noted that studying native Appalachian plants was difficult because so many of them were inaccessible. Together with garden clubs in Boone and the Garden Club of North Carolina, Ortloff helped to create a plant sanctuary for the purposes of education and conservation.
They leased an original eight acres from the town of Boone in 1961 and began construction of the rock walls, stone paths, a pond, rockery, and other hardscaping features of the Daniel Boone Botanical Gardens. After that, planting commenced, with a lot of work done by garden club women, who planted native wildflowers, trees and shrubs, and later bog plants in a small native bog demonstration garden. When an additional two acres were added to the gardens, a peaceful fernery was planted.
The Squire Boone Cabin is a historical building honoring Daniel Boone’s father and the post-Revolutionary war pioneer life in the area. Next door to the gardens is the Southern Appalachian Historical Association’s Hickory Ridge Museum and the Horn in the West Outdoor Theater. The museum includes six more historic cabins outfitted with furnishings and artifacts from the time period of 1785-1805. In 1996 a Pickin’ Porch was constructed in honor of the rich tradition of mountain folk music, and the annual community extravaganza known as “Fairy Day” has brought up to 1,000 people and much merriment to the gardens since 2013.
The Latest:
A brand new stage is being finished just in time for the 2025 Roots in the Garden concert series, a project meant to bring more attention and energy to the gardens, along with raising funds. In it, musicians along with food trucks and other vendors grace the gardens once or twice a month during the warm season, which runs from late May until early September up in Boone.
The stage is just one piece of an effort to overhaul the gardens and make them even more beautiful, inviting, and educational for the folks who visit. Plans are also underway to replant many areas with larger groupings of even more interesting plants. In keeping with the founding principles of the garden, all species will be native to Northwest North Carolina, and will be deer resistant. One whole new section was planted in 2024, and will be a delight to witness as it sprouts and blooms this spring with ephemerals like Ladyslippers, Bloodroot, Dutchman’s Breeches, and many more. Plus, spring brings unfurling fiddleheads in the fern garden.
The parking lot that the gardens share with the Southern Appalachian Historical Association was converted into a FEMA hub for a month after hurricane Helene. The gardens themselves sustained minor damage.
Plan a Visit:
The Daniel Boone Native Gardens are open daily, dawn until dusk, and entrance is by donation. Regular volunteer days happen a few times a week, including Saturdays from 9am-noon and other times TBA. There is plenty of space in the parking lot for garden goers and museum patrons alike. Spring flowers bloom in the gardens between April and May, and others continue through the summer. If you visit between May and November, you can grab some local vittles for a picnic at the nearby Watauga County Farmers Market, open Saturday mornings. Daniel Boone Native Gardens is also just a five minute drive from shops and eateries of downtown Boone.
The Details
Address: 651 Horn in the West Dr., Boone
Hours: Sunrise to sunset, daily
Fees: Donations encouraged
Website: danielboonenativegardens.org
Don’t miss their plant sales where 80+ varieties of perennials, ferns, grasses, sedges, trees, shrubs will be available. May 17, 8 a.m.-noon & June 21, 8 a.m.-noon