Tryon Palace – List of Gardens

If you’re planning a visit to Tryon Palace in New Bern, NC and looking to plan out which gardens to explore, you’ve come to the right place. The 16-acre Tryon Palace complex in Craven County is home to thirteen distinct gardens — ranging from formal 18th-century English parterres to charming 19th-century Southern home gardens, from walled “privy garden” retreats to native plant wilderness spaces. Click on the garden names below to dive deeper into each one — and check out our magnificent gardens guide for a fuller look at the broader complex.

Garden Name	Type
Carraway Garden	Parterre
Commission House Garden	Victorian
Dot Tyler Garden	Mid-19th Century Southern
Green Garden	Knot
Hawks Allée	Sculpture Garden
Kellenberger Garden	Privy Garden
Kitchen Garden	Vegetable Garden
Latham Garden	18-Century English Garden
Pleached Allée	Pleached Garden
South Lawn	Lawn
Stanly House Garden	Town Garden
Stoney Garden	19-Century Southern
Wilderness Garden	Colonial Revival

Planning Your Garden Visit

The Tryon Palace gardens reward visitors who take their time. For lovers of formal 18th-century English garden design, the Latham Garden is the flagship of the entire complex — a two-acre showcase of manicured parterres anchored by a central fountain, dedicated to Maude Moore Latham, whose vision made the broader restoration possible. The Green Garden, redesigned in 2018 as a beautiful knot garden based on a centuries-old European tradition, and the carefully recreated Kitchen Garden with its English and French gardening influences and historic espalier fruit trees, complete the formal 18th-century experience.

For visitors drawn to 19th-century Southern style, the Stoney Garden with its white picket fence and authentic plant selections based on Lavinia Cole Roberts’ garden inventory, the Commission House Garden with its lush Victorian-era plantings, the Dot Tyler Garden with its mid-19th-century New Bern layout and pollinator-friendly practices, and the Stanly House Garden with its formal “Town Garden” design all offer their own distinctive takes on the era.

For a different kind of garden experience, the Kellenberger Garden is a walled “privy garden” that honors the family preservation legacy of the Lathams and Kellenbergers. The Carraway Garden is a Colonial Revival parterre that honors Gertrude Carraway, the first director of the Tryon Palace Restoration. The Hawks Allée has been transformed since 2017 into a vibrant pollinator prairie blooming for ten months of the year, while the Pleached Allée is a stunning living tunnel of intertwined yaupon holly branches. The Wilderness Garden offers a deliberate counterpoint to the formal designs with its native North Carolina plantings, and the expansive South Lawn anchors the rear of the estate as the natural ceremonial gathering space.

All of the gardens are open to the public with a Tryon Palace pass and are well worth taking the time to explore. For a fuller look at the broader complex, check out our magnificent gardens guide.

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