IN BLOOM: The Kitchen Garden has been blossoming beautiful flowers recently, with this image captured just last week.

April is National Garden and Landscape Architecture Month and as part of the Annual Thomasville Rose Festival, Pebble Hill is offering guided Gardens and Grounds Tours April 28 and 29. Led by expert guides, these walking tours will take visitors through the award-winning Green Arrow Tour. The Green Arrow Tour highlights the historic architectural features and native plantings incorporated into the early 20th century landscape design of Cleveland, Ohio landscape architect, Ethelwyn Harrison. Harrison was a dear friend of Kate Hanna Ireland Harvey, who owned Pebble Hill from 1901 until her death in 1936.

Harrison was born in St. Petersburg, Florida in 1892 and was a 1916 graduate of the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Landscape Design. Her goal at Pebble Hill was to create a setting in the English formal style and she carefully incorporated native plants that would provide winter and early spring blooms, as well as greenery that would provide year-round interest.

The guided Green Arrow tours will feature many beautiful locations throughout the grounds, including the Family Cemetery, Kitchen Garden, jasmine tunnels, and the Podocarpus Maze on the front lawn. Guides will highlight Harrison’s usage of native trees, plants, and shrubs in applying her master plan for Pebble Hill. The tours will be educational, informative, and entertaining for gardeners, history buffs, and anyone interested in spending time in beautiful surroundings.

The April 28 tour will feature a picnic lunch on the grounds.The April 29 tour will not include a picnic, but participants are invited to bring their lunch to enjoy anywhere on the grounds. The picnic area, located by the pond, features a nature observation deck, the historic Noah’s Ark structure, and a perfect view of the “Baby Big Oak.”

The April 28 tour is from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and tickets are $30 per person, which includes lunch. The April 29 tour is from 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. with a ticket price of $15.

Pebble Hill was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on February 23, 1990. A site on the Georgia Camellia Trail since 2016 and a member of the American Camellia Society since 2019, Pebble Hill is proud to maintain its extensive variety of camellias, many of which were included in Harrison’s landscape plan.

Pebble Hill is also a stop on the Rosalyn Carter Butterfly Trail with a certified pollinator garden. The beauty of Pebble Hill is referenced in the following excerpt from Garden History of Georgia 1773-1933: “One’s impression of Pebble Hill is that in developing the vast grounds such close harmony with nature has been preserved that there is an art which doth mend nature, change it rather, but the art itself is nature.”

The award-winning Green Arrow tour is made possible by matching grants from the Garden Club of Georgia, Inc. and the Thomasville Garden Club, Inc.

For more information on both tours and to purchase tickets, visit www.pebblehill.com or call 229-226-2344.