Cheekwood Botanical Gardens and Museum of Art, Nashville, Tennessee

Views: 6580

In late September, I traveled to Nashville, Tennessee, on a business trip. While I was there, a friend and I took the opportunity to visit Cheekwood Botanical Gardens and Museum of Art. I’m glad we did.

Part of the country estate built by Leslie and Mabel Cheek in 1929, Cheekwood is 55 acres. In addition to the manor house itself, the property is divided into individually-named specialty gardens, a .9-mile sculpture trail, an art museum, and a restaurant.

According to their website, Cheekwood has a quarter million visitors every year, including many this time of year. For the holidays, they decorate in a million holiday lights, something I wish I could see someday because the pictures are amazing (//www.instagram.com/p/BMtuiUhDVPC/).

I wouldn’t call myself a botanical garden (or botanical garden restaurant) connoisseur, but I enjoyed our day at Cheekwood. There were many gorgeous shots for my camera, lots of butterflies, and the food at the Pineapple Room Restaurant was delicious.

But let me tell you about some of the individual gardens.

My favorite was the Wills Perennial Garden. It was planted on a terraced hillside, and it had a wild, untamed look to it, which I liked very much. Many plants were blooming while we were there, including coneflowers, salvias, native gaura, rudbeckias, canna lilies, coreopsis, and others. It had beautyberry bushes draping over a limestone wall, and ornamental grasses provided texture. The butterflies were very busy in this garden, and I saw several swallowtail caterpillars on a bronze fennel-like plant.

The Robertson Ellis Color Garden was the first we explored. Planted in tropicals, perennials, and many annuals, I thought the combination of gigantic elephant ears and red canna lilies was especially spectacular. (I’ve tried to plant elephant ears in my gardens without success – in part because my gophers find them tasty – so I was more than a little envious, as well.) They used some variety of squash or gourd as an ornamental vine, which I thought was quite clever. I might try that myself, this spring. True to its name, this garden was the most colorful we visited.

I also loved the Shomu-en Japanese Garden. Isolated by a long path in a bamboo forest, a gate opened up into a grassy yard with gingko trees and a small bamboo pipe and stone basin waterfall. From there, steps led up to a large pavilion overlooking a beautifully sculpted garden. It was a very quiet, peaceful place that invited you to sit and meditate upon the landscape.

The Trails

From the Japanese Botanical Garden, my friend and I found our way to the sculpture trail, formally named the Carell Woodland Sculpture Trail. It was an easy walk, with a variety of odd, outdoor sculptures. To my disappointment, the woods were obviously not in a pristine, natural state. According to the garden website, the woods had once been overrun by invasive Japanese bush honeysuckle. What I saw was a forest being invaded by invasive bamboo from the Japanese garden. So, it seemed to me that they may have traded one invader for another, and they were still very much in the middle of a battle to get rid of one or both.

We left the sculpture trail near the manor house, and worked our way to the Martin Boxwood Gardens, with its lovely reflecting pool and statues of the muses, Thalia and Urania. There was a classical concert happening in the manor house, and we lingered, listening to the music.

After lunch we wandered through the Carell Dogwood Garden. Cheekwood’s dogwood collection is a member of the North American Plant Collection Consortium (NAPCC), one of only 62 gardens and arboreta in the U.S. dedicated to conserving and caring for specific plant collections. There are 343 different dogwood specimens at Cheekwood, including 23 different varieties of flowering dogwood. Many of these were in the Carell Dogwood Garden. I had always thought of dogwoods as trees, but this collection taught me that many are shrubs or even herbaceous perennial subshrubs. I would never have identified them as dogwoods on my own. This garden was also planted with hostas, hellebores, astilbes, and hydrangeas. I think it might be worth visiting Cheekwood in early spring just to see the dogwoods in bloom.

Other Botanical gardens and areas that we didn’t have enough time to enjoy were:

– Howe Garden with an endangered stinking cedar (Torreya taxifoia)

– Sigourney Cheek Literary Garden with a small amphitheater designed for book and poetry readings

– Herb Study Garden where you are encouraged to touch and smell

– Turner Seasons Garden with a series of rain basins and special plant collections

– Burr Terrace Garden, which is based on the oldest surviving botanical garden in the world in Padua Italy

– Robinson Family Water Garden featuring shade-loving perennials such as hellebores, heucheras, hostas, and ferns

– Cheekwood Art Museum

I would love to have visited these other areas, and if I ever get back to Nashville, I will certainly go back! The Cheekwood website (//cheekwood.org/) has many more pictures and better descriptions of their gardens.

Meet Leslie Miller

Leslie Ann Miller shares 3.5 acres in rural Oklahoma with birds, butterflies and wide variety of animals. She is currently transforming her yard with plantings…

Leslie's Recent Posts

Woodland phlox
Early spring is time to plant native spring ephemerals
Read this post
violets
Native violets: beneficial, not a bane
Read this post

Membership Has Its Perks

Become a registered user and get access to exclusive benefits like...
  • Ask The Expert Questions
  • Newsletter Archive
  • PlantersPlace Magazine
  • Members Photo Gallery
  • Product Ratings & Reviews
  • Garden Club Samples

Here’s more information about gardening that you’re going to want