Ten acres along W. T. Weaver Boulevard welcome your visit to Asheville's free 'people's garden. Dedicated to the study and promotion of native plants and habitats of the Southern Appalachians, this is a garden open daily with free admission for all. Funds to operate and maintain it come from membership and donations, and volunteers collaborate with a small paid staff — the reason many call it the "people's garden.
Community leaders established the garden in 1961 on eroded, abandoned timberland; cleanup and the first trails took shape from 1962 to 1963, and planting began in 1964 following an overall design by Doan Ogden, a nationally known landscape architect. At that time more than 5,000 plants were transplanted here from private lands — often rescue sites about to be bulldozed — and from national forests. Although the garden sits on land belonging to the adjacent University of North Carolina at Asheville, it operates independently under a board of directors elected from and by the general membership.
Stand here and breathe; imagine the rescue plants settling into these slopes, the hand-built trails beneath your feet, and the steady work of volunteers and staff. Picture the 5,000 rescued plants first transplanted here from land about to be bulldozed.