About The Garden

A Work of Love

Black-and-white photo of Eudora Welty gardening on the steps leading to the upper garden.

Modern-day color photo of the restored Eudora Welty Garden arbor and trellis.

Black-and-white photo of Chestina Welty in the cutting garden behind the stucco garage with snips in one hand and cut flowers in the other.

Most people know Eudora Welty as a writer, but she was also an avid gardener.
Her mother, Chestina, designed the garden in 1925. Until about 1945, she and Welty spent much time with hands in the soil, digging, planting, and weeding.

Both Welty’s prose and personal correspondence are rich with imagery from the natural world. She mentions more than 150 kinds of plants in her stories.

Conversations with Welty, her photographs, and her mother’s detailed garden journals guide our historic restoration. Welty asked that the garden not be turned into something it wasn’t, explaining it was never a show garden—merely a work of love, typical of its time.

Close-up of a pair of pink marbled camellia blossoms in the Welty garden.

Black-and-white photo of Eudora Welty watering the upper garden while lounging in a lawn chair.

Modern-day view of the almost tunnel-like path through the thick native vegetation in the Welty woodland garden.

Always in Bloom

The Welty garden provides a “parade of bloom” all year long, even in the winter months. Its historical design boldly mixes annuals, perennials, and bulbs in borders—not beds—creating distinct “rooms” to enjoy.

CHECK BLOOM CALENDAR

Today, the restored Welty garden is home to many heirloom plants
not commonly available in commercial nurseries. Gracing our beds are tea roses, climbing roses, daylilies, flowering shrubs, native plants and trees, and more than 30 varieties of Welty’s favorite flower, the camellia. In fact, many of our camellias were planted or grafted by Welty herself.

The Eudora Welty Garden is recognized as an official stop on the American Camellia Society Gulf Coast Camellia Trail and a display garden for the American Daffodil Society. It is one of only two public botanical gardens in Mississippi.

Garden Hours

Tuesday–Friday: 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday: 12:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.

The garden is included on guided house tours, and guests are welcome to take a free, self-guided walk through the garden or sit on the side porch during visitor hours.