If you have struggled with garden design or with incorporating native plants into an established landscape, the Native Garden Tour, part of the Cape Fear Native Plant Festival, is an ideal place to find inspiration.
Now in its 11th year, the festival features an evening speaker series, a native plant shopping day, and the garden tour itself, offering three distinct ways to approach the same goal of building a landscape suited to the coastal region.
The garden tour opens the gates of seven homes across New Hanover County. Rather than relying on a plant tag or a written description, visitors can walk through established and developing landscapes and see, firsthand, how a given species performs at different stages of growth and how it might be incorporated
into an existing bed rather than requiring a full replanting.
Among this year's featured properties is the home garden of local author, Barbara Sullivan, one of the festival's evening guest speakers, whose backyard is included on the tour for a second consecutive year. Tucked into the heart of downtown Wilmington, her garden functions as a native backyard secret garden, demonstrating that native landscaping is not limited to large suburban lots and can thrive within a compact, historic footprint as well.
The tour follows directly after the festival's native plant shopping day on Saturday, Sept. 19, when local nurseries and growers set up throughout the Cape Fear region. Visitors who purchase plants that Saturday can see, the following day, mature examples of many of the same species in real landscapes, offering a clearer sense of eventual size, form, and placement before those plants go into the ground at home.
Tickets for the Native Garden Tour are limited and are moving quickly this year, so early registration is strongly encouraged.
For the complete festival schedule, ticket information, and garden tour registration, visit go.ncsu.edu/nativeplantfestival2026.
Gabriella de Souza is the Extension Agent for Consumer Horticulture with N.C. Cooperative Extension, New Hanover County Center, and co-chair of the Cape Fear Native Plant Festival.
This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Get tickets now for the Cape Fear Native Plant Festival Garden Tour
