Gardens
See a brief overview of our gardens and historic property.
Gardens at a Glance
The Gardens at Yew Dell offer a delightful place to spend a day, an excellent place to learn new plants and provide an opportunity to check out design details for your own garden. The gardens range from formal to informal and contain everything from trees to shrubs, annuals and perennials and anything else you can imagine. Because of our variety, you can always count on something blooming at Yew Dell – 12 months of the year.
Yew Dell’s gardens also support our ongoing research aimed at finding the best new plants for regional gardens. Each plant in our gardens is evaluated for performance. When we find a new winner, we work with local industry members to get the plant into production…and eventually into area gardens. We’re always on the lookout for pest-resistance, attractive and well-adapted plants for our gardens and for yours.
Arboretum
This is a delightful place for a quiet walk among one of the best tree and shrub collections in the region.
Castle Terrace
Panoramic views of the pollinator meadow and constantly changing annual/tropical plantings combine to form the perfect setting for Yew Dell’s Castle.
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Event Lawn
This luxurious lawn space is flanked by the iconic Holly Allee and a stunning border of exuberant spring bulbs, summer annuals and tropical foliage. It is the perfect garden setting for a variety of events.
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Family Garden
Located behind Yew Dell’s 1840s Log Cabin, this space is adorned with raised beds of sensory, pollinator and natural dye plants.
Glen Garden
Combining an ephemeral stream bed flowing with Creeping Jenny (Lysmachia nummularia 'Aurea'), billowing shade perennials and a perfectly situated pair of Adirondack chairs, this is among the favorite sitting gardens at Yew Dell. Look for winter blooming hellebores (Helleborus xhybridus), spring bulbs and summer hydrangeas.
Kitchen Garden
Displaying a rotating collection of vegetables, herbs and tropicals, this space enjoys delightful views of the Castle Terrace. It features common and unusual edibles designed to please the eyes as well as the palette.
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Millstone Garden
This shady garden offers a wide range of unusual plants from all over the world. Look for winter blooming witch hazels (Hamamelis) from North America, naturalized spring bulbs from Asia Minor, summer blooming buckeyes (Aesculus) and a riot of fall foliage.
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Overlook Garden
This bright, sunny garden was designed by noted British plantsman, Adrian Bloom. It combines old stand-by reliable plants and new varieties not yet on the market. It is an excellent place to learn a variety of herbaceous perennials.
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Pavilion
Garden
Designed to highlight the spring, summer and fall seasons, this garden is at its best during event season. Whether it is a wedding, music concert, craft fair or corporate meeting, this garden offers a stunning mix of color and texture throughout the season.
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Jean Ohlmann Secret Garden
This shady garden offers a wonderful combination of winter/spring-blooming hellebores (Helleborus species and hybrids), cold hardy ferns, bold hostas and a variety of hardy gingers (Asarum species). It is named in honor of our dear garden friend, Jean Ohlmann and has long been maintained by Jean’s garden club, the Louisville Ramblers.
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Serpentine
Garden
This garden originally graced the entrance drive to the Klein family home and was designed to highlight a wide diversity of evergreen plant form, color and texture. Specimens of spruce (Picea), fir (Abies), hemlock (Tsuga), pine (Pinus) and the property’s namesake yew (Taxus) are strung together by a long, undulating spiraea hedge.
Sunken Rock Garden
Designed and built by Theodore Klein as a garden for dwarf conifers, this garden was completely transformed into an alpine styled rock garden and offers a wide diversity of plants from around the globe.
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Evaluation Gardens
Marked by Corten steel entry kiosks, these two gardens see new plantings every year. Each plant is evaluated for winter survival, garden vigor, ornamental traits and pest resistance. Our goal is to bring in every available variety of a particular plant or plant group and evaluate them side by side so we can identify the best of the lot.
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