DIY Garden Tours: Steal Ideas from Neighborhood Walks, Nurseries & Public Gardens

Nothing beats a garden tour for inspiration — but formal tours aren’t the only game in town. When I finally attended a local tour with my two gardening kids, we wandered house to house, chatting with owners and soaking up ideas. The experience sparked a realization: I’d been curating DIY tours for years. You can too.

Ideas from a Formal Tour

Annabelle hydrangea + yew hedge: Simple, stunning privacy screening that highlights the hydrangeas — perfect for disguising my ugly retaining walls.
Lawn replacement: One homeowner phased in long grass, nepeta, and oregano for a free-flowing, natural meadow.
Wine bottle retaining wall: Decorative and functional — bottles shore up a slope against erosion. Most were gifts; a few prized cobalt bottles were purchased.
Compact veggie garden: Gated entry and curving path transform chores into delight.
Palette garden: Strawberries and impatiens in a repurposed palette — practical and pretty all summer.

Create Your Own Tour

Public gardens & parks: I study shrub massings at Meijer Gardens (botanical garden + sculpture park) during our rebuild.
Nurseries with display gardens: Children’s gardens showcase veggies, herbs, perennials, self-seeding annuals — bright spots even on gray days. One inspired my foxglove revival; another galvanized my washtub collection.
Garden centers: Even without formal displays, their plantings reveal color combos, annual/perennial/shrub mixes, and container recipes.

Business campuses: Corporate budgets fund serious landscaping. I photographed viburnum hedges at my husband’s office to calculate quantities for our evergreen underplanting.

Neighborhood entrances: Gated community entries offer curated plantings. A quick dog-walk snap captured a purplish-pink cleome I later bought.
Medians: Stoplight observations reveal tough plant combos — like perennial grasses with salvia and annuals — perfect for hell strips.
Neighbors’ yards: Garden stalking (confession: I do it) builds a mental library of what works locally.

Your turn: What DIY garden tours have you created? Share in the comments.