Hendersonville, North Carolina, invites visitors to start the summer with fresh plants, yard decor and outdoor furniture at the 26th annual Garden Jubilee, May 25-26. The city’s premier lawn-and-garden show transforms Main Street into a nursery with thousands of annuals, perennials, vegetables and herbs.
Downtown Hendersonville provides the setting for the 260 vendors who set up among the trees, flowering planters and hanging baskets that line the sidewalk. The Southeast Tourism Society named Garden Jubilee a Top 20 event in the Southeast for May 2019.
“Garden Jubilee allows us to highlight a variety of nurseries and growers,” says Beth Carden, executive director of the Henderson County TDA, which sponsors the event. “Shopkeepers also invite attendees into their businesses where they stock special garden-related items for the weekend, so it’s a win-win for downtown.”
The show includes yard art, outdoor furniture, tools, planters and other garden-themed merchandise. Hospitality tents on each end of Main Street hold customers’ purchases while they shop, and attendants are stationed on each block to answer questions.
Throughout the day Saturday and Sunday, gardening experts take the stage at the Visitor Center to present 30-minute sessions on a variety of topics, such as native plants and pollinators, caring for fescue lawns, composting 101, and beginning vegetable gardening.
“We have five sessions each day, and they are all different,” Carden said. “The experts provide educational information, and then people can go out on the street and make the proper purchases for their specific yards.”
In conjunction with Garden Jubilee, The Gallery at Flat Rock presents “Art in Bloom,” May 25-27 with a ticketed evening preview on May 24. The exhibit pairs 20 floral designers with 20 works of art. The florists then interpret the pieces of art through floral arrangements.
On Monday, May 27, the Mr. Maple Festival takes place at Nichols Nursery. The local nursery — a nationally known expert in Japanese maple trees — leads tours of its gardens and offers trees for sale from its collection of more than 1,000 cultivars.
Hours for Garden Jubilee are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Admission is free.
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