Guide to Knoxville Gardens

Knoxville is full of outdoor opportunities, from hiking House Mountain to mountain biking in Knoxville’s Urban Wilderness.  But sometimes you might want to dial it down a notch or two on the adventure scale.  You might have young kids in tow, accessibility needs, or just want to take it easy.  Today we’re going for the peaceful side of nature and featuring gardens to visit!

Knoxville Botanical Garden and Arboretum

The Knoxville Botanical Garden and Arboretum (KBGA) is an expansive 47 acre space open to the public in East Knoxville.  Like other Knoxville attractions such as James White’s Fort, this land was given as a grant for service during the Revolutionary War.  An orchard was planted on this tract by David Wessel of Buncombe County, North Carolina, and he began selling fruits and vegetables from his family farm.  While many post-Revolutionary War pioneers settled in East Tennessee, many also continued west.  Wessel provided passing settlers with seeds and small plants needed to start their own farms. 

Several generations continued in Wessel’s path, although the focus shifted over time from food crops to ornamental plants.  In the 1940s, one of his descendents attended the University of Tennessee studying landscape design and particularly enjoyed stonework.  Gatehouses and walls were constructed, which is what visitors of today often notice first.  Several decades later, the last owner partnered with help from the ASLAN Foundation to set up the Knoxville Botanical Garden and Arboretum.

Walking Map | credit Knoxville Botanical Gardens

Some quick FAQs

When to visit?  Year-round, open dawn to dusk 365 days a year! 

How much is admission?  Donations are accepted, but these gardens are FREE to visit!

What is there to see?  There are several components to the KBGA, so you might have to plan more than one visit!  You’ll see the stone terraces as referenced above, the beds planted and maintained by the Knox County Master Gardeners, the Dogwood Nature Trail which features over 20 cultivars of this region’s native Cornus florida, the Butterfly Meadow – a perfect for kids garden showcasing only plants native to East Tennessee, and much more.

How can I be a good visitor?  We’re glad you asked!  Please watch where you step (don’t walk in the plant beds, there might be little seedlings trying to grow in there!), don’t litter, and please park in designated areas.  Cameras are welcome (follow and tag @knoxgarden on social), but professionals are requested to join as a member.

To learn more about the KBGA including classes, programs, and events, visit them here.

University of Tennessee Gardens

The UT Gardens are the official botanical gardens of the state of Tennessee.  In addition to Knoxville, there are two other locations in Jackson and Crossville.  They have an interesting history, established by the University of Tennessee’s Department of Plant Sciences in 1983 and now recognized as one of 34 official All American Selections test sites in the US.  This garden acts as an outdoor laboratory to see how plants will fare in this mid-southern climate (read: hot and humid summers, alternating freezing and thawing winters).  May the best plant win; these tests can show which varieties reach the commercial market.  The gardens here also showcase how best to landscape and design for home garden purpose.

They also host classes and special events.  Some annual favorites include the Art in the Garden (every year has a different theme, designed to promote community participation and artist collaboration with the gardens), the Wild Bird Eggstravaganza, and the Howl-O-Ween Pooch Parade and Pet Expo.  No matter what time of year you visit, there’s always something to do at UT Gardens!

Walking Map | credit UT Gardens

When to visit?  Year-round, open dawn to dusk 365 days a year! 

How much is admission?  Certain events charge an entrance fee, but otherwise these gardens are FREE to visit!

What is there to see?  It’s hard to pick a favorite, but possibly the rose garden steals the show.  Be sure to take some pictures of the heart sculpture (there is a stonework that has a heart shaped cut out that visitors love to get a photo inside of the heart).  They have a great children’s area and other random finds like an old busted pick up truck that is excellent practice for newbie photographers trying to learn the manual settings on their cameras.  The Third Creek Greenway connects through with a view of the Tennessee River.

How can I be a good visitor?  Very similar to KBGA: don’t litter, and please park in designated areas (parking is limited to 10 spaces during the week).  Oh, and don’t forget to clean up after your pets and keep ‘em on a leash!  No biking or skating please.  Cameras are welcome (follow and tag @utgardens on social), but professionals are requested to join as a member.

To learn more about the UT Gardens, including classes, programs, and events, visit them here.

Dogwood Arts

Dogwood Arts itself is not a garden, but works to promote arts, culture, and natural beauty of our region.  In addition to their House & Garden Show, they have several other annual initiatives including Chalk Walk, the Dogwood Arts Festival, Featured Gardens, and its founding project – the Dogwood Trails. 

Dogwood Arts was founded on the idea of the Dogwood Trails, in response to a New York newspaper reporter who visited in 1947 and wrote “Knoxville is the ugliest city I ever saw in America, with the possible exception of some mill towns in New England.”  This spurred the creation in 1955 of an organization with members of the Knoxville Garden Club and others to beautify our city.  The Dogwood Trails can be found in every area of the city, and can be easily recognized by the pink dashes down the center of the road.  Leisurely drive, bike, or walk and get to know these neighborhoods’ beauty.

In 2025, Dogwood Arts will celebrate 70 years and features the Holston Hills and Morningside Trails in East Knoxville. There are 13 trails with over 90 miles to explore!

North - North Hills, Halls/Timberline, Fountain City

South - Lakemoor Hills, Chapman Highway, Island Home

East - Holston Hills, Morningside

West - Sequoyah Hills, Deane Hill, Farragut, Westmoreland, West Hills
 

For their Featured Gardens, Dogwood Arts work with local residents who own private gardens that are otherwise unavailable to the public and offer specific dates where they can be toured, often by the homeowners themselves. For 2025:

Baxter Garden is perched on a hilltop with breathtaking mountain views, Baxter Garden features 10 distinct garden "rooms." Stroll through the Dogwood Ramble, the Azalea Garden with 500+ spring-blooming azaleas, the Lotus Garden & Maze, The Ellipse, and many more. A spectacular display of springtime blooms awaits! (Open April 12 & 13 2025)

The Savage House and Garden is a historic home and garden in Fountain City listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Arthur Savage (1872–1946), an English immigrant, designed the house and garden during World War I. Along with his older brother, Arthur Savage made a small fortune in the early 1900s by manufacturing industrial equipment. Savage was president of the Ty-Sa-Man company, once located in what is now the World's Fair Park, which specialized in the manufacturing of marble-cutting equipment.

Savage loved rock gardens and established several in East Tennessee, and the Fountain City garden was inspired by Japanese garden designs, which had become popular through the early twentieth century Art Nouveau movement. Work on the garden began around 1917, and was completed sometime during following decade. In 1937, the Savage Garden was damaged by a tornado, and remained in a state of disrepair for several years. In 1986, the Savage family sold the garden to Bill Dohm and Patty Cooper. Dohm and Cooper have since renovated the garden and restored its fountain. Plant species found in the garden include Japanese Umbrella Pine, Chinese Pistache, Jack-in-the-Pulpit, and Dwarf Crested Iris.

GATOP (God's Answer to Our Prayers) was aptly named by Lloyd and Virginia Pease, who, before moving to Knoxville from Virginia in 1941, prayed that they would find a home that overlooked both water and mountains. The property was purchased from them by Dr. Alan Solomon in 1971, who, over 49 years with the help of skilled, dedicated employees, has endeavored to preserve and enhance the natural beauty of this unusual property. With the help of devoted and skilled gardeners and craftsmen, and his own efforts as an amateur stone mason, much has been accomplished: more than 400 tons of limestone have been collected and used to build walls, walkways, steps, and other structures; waterfalls, ponds, and meandering streams have been constructed; extensive collections of native wildflowers and ferns have been planted; many unusual and rare plant specimens have been intermixed with large native trees including American elm, walnut, ash, hackberry, persimmon, beech, sweet gum, and mulberry (many draped with berry vines), as well as various species of oaks, hickories, and magnolias.

Of note, membership in the American Conifer Society has resulted in the planting of more than 350 varieties of conifers, concentrated in four different locations. Also featured is a large collection of hollies. The plantings are complimented by prominently sited stainless steel, bronze, and stone sculptures, as well as hundreds of feet of iron rails crafted by the master blacksmith John Medwedeff. GATOP, given its horticultural and historic features, in 2007, it became one of over 5,000 gardens listed in the Smithsonian Institute’s Archives of American Gardens. GATOP has provided its dwellers and many visitors a place to enjoy and appreciate nature and, most importantly, has served as an abiding source of serenity and spiritual renewal; furthermore, it will endure as the University of Tennessee GATOP Arboretum & Education Center and be part of the State of Tennessee Botanical Gardens.

To learn more about Dogwood Arts and their programming, visit them here.

Historic House Museums

A few other open-to-the-public gardens can be found at a few of Knoxville's Historic House Museums.

Blount Mansion's gardens date to 1934, when the Knoxville Garden Club offered to install and maintain a proper garden at Blount Mansion, the new museum started in 1926. In 1941, the club commissioned William Pitkin, Jr., one of the leading landscape architects of the early 20th century, to create a formal design. Pitkin’s plan called for an herb garden, a sunken garden, herringbone brick paths, and a sunken well. The work was postponed during WWII and was completed in 1947. In 1958, after the Blount Mansion Association restored Governor Blount’s office and reconstructed the Blount’s kitchen on its original location, the Knoxville Garden Club engaged Alden Hopkins, landscape architect at Colonial Williamsburg, to redesign the gardens at Blount Mansion in a more authentic eighteenth-century style. Hopkins plan kept many of Pitkin’s original elements but simplified the layout and added more plants which were common in the Blounts’ day. Hopkins associate at Colonial Williamsburg, Donald Parker, stepped in to finish the work at Blount Mansion after Hopkins died suddenly after submitting his first drawings.

Mabry-Hazen House is located on over seven and a half wooded acres atop Mabry's Hill comprising a Level 1 Arboretum with over thirty species of trees. Spread across the grounds, you'll meet sagacious old growth oaks, maples, and elms, massive century old southern magnolias, and over eighty flowering Dogwood Trees providing spectacular Spring blooms and Winter berries. The “Old Grove,” with dozens of Dogwood trees, makes the Arboretum a hub of the Dogwood Arts' Morningside Dogwood Trail each year.