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A letter from the Tour Co-Chairs
©2004/5 Eugenia Uhl
Dear Garden Enthusiast:
Get ready to be wowed at the 2012 Secret Gardens Tour ® in uptown New Orleans! The Tour is on the books for Friday and Saturday, March 23-24. Please join us and explore private gardens on Octavia, Hurst and Arabella streets on both sides of the Saint Charles Avenue streetcar line with lush lagniappe of a literary nature.
More than extraordinary garden tours and tips, we invite you to come and enjoy fanciful musical performances, the floral labyrinth, and gourmet boxed lunches for sale. Secret Treasures is our outdoor boutique offering garden accessories, gifts and wonderful creations by area artists and merchants. Check out New Orleans hotels, restaurants and retailers participating in our fascination from featuring window displays to offering Secret Garden-inspired special rates, menus and various promotions.
A few tour specifics: Special private guided tours are available on Friday for an additional donation. Friday tour visitors will enjoy a special gardens preview and exclusive visits with gardening experts. Friday tour tickets include return admission on Saturday. Visitors will meet the professionals responsible for creating or maintaining each garden. Experts will tell of their involvement; some will be before and after explanations, complete with visuals; others may focus on style and point out garden highlights, answering questions along the way. Saturday’s main tour includes renowned landscaping experts and a few homeowners to answer your questions, and offer you their insider details.
Seeds sown in March 2004: Little was known about brain injury. There were few resources to help navigate the route to recovery. The first Secret Gardens Tour® began with a group of New Orleans families that were touched personally by challenges and triumphs experienced throughout brain injury recovery. These families sought a way to provide information on everything from local traditional healthcare systems to locating alternative healthcare while informing the public about causes and prevention of brain injury. The first two annual tours went off without a hitch. Then, a four-year break occurred due to Hurricane Katrina. Secret Gardens Tour® resumed in March 2009. Art in the Garden, the 2010 tour, was tremendous, so you can count on the 2012 tour to be a doozy!
Enjoy these private gardens and being surrounded by New Orleans beauty. Your Secret Gardens Tour® ticket purchase helps to support brain injury recovery and resources here in Louisiana. Thank you for coming!
Our very best,
Kathleen Waring
Co-Chair
2012 Secret Gardens Tour
Marianne Mumford
Co-Chair
2012 Secret Gardens Tour
