'Only place on earth': 28-acre wonderland of rare plants hidden near Raleigh opens this weekend
A 28-acre wonderland of exotic and rare plants from all over the globe is opening for visitors – for this weekend only.
The Juniper Level Botanic Garden opens for the public only once each season. This month, they are opening on the weekend of May 10 to May 12. After that, the magical secret garden won't hold another open garden day until next season.
During these open days, no visit requests are needed and admission is free. Guests can come between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. and tour more than two dozen acres of over 27,000 plants, trees and shrubs you can't find anywhere else.
"We have pretty much anything you can imagine," said Tony Avent, a horticulturalist and Proprietor of Juniper Level Botanic Garden. "We have the one of the top five largest plant collections in the entire United States."
Avent says they also do their own breeding – meaning they have plants literally no one else in the world has.
"We just bought a tall ladder and started creating our own," he said. "That's why we've got things you really can't find anywhere else."
Juniper Level Botanic Garden is connected with Plant Delights Nursery, which has customers as far away as Thailand and Japan ordering from right here in Raleigh.
For a weekend this spring, the people of Raleigh can access this wonderland of unique, unbelievable plants and trees.
Depending on the season, photos on their website's gallery show everything from a human-sized Corpse Flower to incredible top-down photos of their 25-foot-tall century plants. Some flowers look just like a storybook: Little pink Fairy Wing flowers and peppermint striped Crinum Lillies.
There's even a mystic waterfall over a hollowed-out grotto, and meandering trails curling through acres of flowers of every size and color.
Hidden in the trees is a rustic gazebo surrounded by soft purple flowers. Ivy drapes from oddly-shaped trees, and a stream trickles down a pile of stones alongside a trail. An arched wooden bridge decorated with sticks curves over a creek. Elsewhere, a shelf of long stones creates a 'crevice garden,' forming a unique walking path amid pointy agave and other desert plants.
Juniper Level Botanic Garden hosts any kind of garden you might imagine: From crevice gardens to bog gardens, greenhouses and grotto gardens. The have a tropical island space and water oak garden. The collection of flowers, shrubs and foliage looks like an impossible mix of tropical jungle plants growing alongside familiar North Carolina favorites. Their collection of trees is just as visually stunning, with flowering branches adding a pop of color amid classic evergreens.
You can learn more about Juniper Level Botanic Garden and their open garden days on their website. Their address is: 9241 Sauls Road, Raleigh, NC 27603.
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