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.
(This area is currently inaccessible due to the Castle Gardens construction project.)
Cut Flower
Garden
This garden provides flowers for the cut flower arrangements available for sale in the Garden Gift Shop. Plantings include a variety of perennials and annuals
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.
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.
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.
(This area is currently inaccessible due to the Castle Gardens construction project.)
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.
Kitchen
Garden
Displaying a rotating collection of vegetables, herbs and tropicals, this space surrounds the Log Cabin. It features common and unusual edibles designed to please the eyes as well as the palette. Learn more here.
Millstone
Garden
Featuring a collection of historic millstones that belonged to the Klein family, 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.
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.
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.
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.
Walled
Garden
This formal, border garden features a small water pool and fountain with a seasonally changing display of brilliant spring bulbs, summer annuals/tropicals and a fresh planting of fall annuals to usher in the fall season.
(This area is currently inaccessible due to the Castle Gardens construction project.)
Garden Sculptures
At Yew Dell we love to use the gardens and arboretum to show off fine garden sculpture. And throughout the grounds you’ll find a variety of pieces, some that are part of Yew Dell’s permanent collection and others that are for sale. Those for sale rotate in and out of the collection from time to time but we keep an updated list of pieces for sale in our visitor center. Those for sale are labelled with sculpture name, sculptor name, and price. So if you see something that piques your interest, stop by the visitor center and ask. All sculpture sales support both the artists and Yew Dell!
Our current collection of pieces available for purchase include pieces by Lousiville artists Dave Caudill* and Mike McCarthy. We think both artists produce works that feel at home in just about any garden setting. Take one home and see for yourself!
*Check out a gallery of Dave Caudill’s works currently available at Yew Dell.
