2019 Hydrangea Festival Garden Tour - Part 1

Every year I get excited about doing the Hydrangea Festival Garden Tour. I learn and see so many different ideas that I can do for the outside my home. I also had the chance to volunteer at one of the home gardens and take the home garden tour. The Hydrangeas Festival wrote wonderful historical background information of each of the homes on the garden tours. Check out these three incredible home gardens below:

The Newborn Garden

Mr. and Mrs. Newborn moved to this house 12 1/2 years ago and enjoy a full array of gardening projects on their two acre tract. Beside the many beautiful Hydrangea, roses, and small flower beds throughout their gardens, you will see that they also enjoy a vegetable garden along with strawberries and blueberries. The entire property creates a tranquil environment and wonderful backyard retreat.

The Connally Garden & Cottage

The Cottage was originally built in the 1940's from scrap materials with handmade blocks for the foundation. The house sat on these handmade blocks on the smallest lot in the city of Douglasville and in Douglas County and had deteriorated to an unlivable condition. A complete dismantling and reconstruction took place a number of years ago, meeting the historic district specifications, as the house is a Designated Historic Property by the Douglasville Historical Preservation Commission.

The garden was designed by Mr. Gainey and planted by Alex Smith Garden Design, Ltd, with hydrangeas, swamp magnolia, ferns, hellebores, buckeyes, flowering perennials in the shade of 75 -year-old pecans trees and water oaks. The garden has urns from Greece Turkey and Italy with fountains and copper water wheels created by Greg Frank of Southern Metal Crafts, Inc. This garden may be small in space, however, it is gigantic in charm.

Grandiflora Estate - the Hudson Garden

Ms. Hudson purchased this 100-year-old home over 23 years ago, and immediately began creating this wonderful outdoor space. She has taken the principles of interior design and adapted them to outdoor living, creating 25 wonderful garden rooms ranging from a rustic tree house to the most sophisticated outdoor living and dining rooms complete with Gothic windows.

Her garden boasts hundreds of boxwoods, 235+ hydrangea with over 25 named varieties, and 2 ponds which were uncovered by her while digging and excavating. Her greenhouse, which is 20 years old, was just named by Country Living Magazine a "she-shed", the female answer to the "man cave". She is an interior and garden designer whose work and gardens have been featured on Home and Garden Television shows "A Gardener Diary" and "Look What I Did". Her garden has also been featured in "Garden Ideas", "Better Homes and Gardens" and "Southern Living" magazines, as well as in "Southern Living - Everyday Gardening" and "County Living" and most recently "Lifestyle Block" a New Zealand Publication.