Cherokee Garden Club’s Biennial Garden Tour Supports the Work of its Community Fund

Atlanta Garden Tour Helps Community Projects Grow

March 19, 2025

By: Blair Robbins

When fundraising for community projects, who says money doesn’t grow on trees?  Garden tours are lucrative green resources that many garden clubs use to raise funds for community projects.  Take Cherokee Garden Club’s (CGC) third biennial Cherokee Garden Tour which on April 16, 2025, will benefit the Atlanta community. This tradition began in 2019, when CGC welcomed over 500 attendees to the gardens of five of its club members. In 2023, the successful tour again featured beautiful gardens in Atlanta’s Buckhead community. The 2025 tour showcases five gardens ranging in design from classic elegance to new innovations. John Howard, Alex Smith, and Bill Smith are among the landscape designers whose remarkable talents will be featured. The event also will feature an artisan pop-up boutique, en plein air painting, and tasty boxed lunches – all ingredients for an enjoyable day in the gardens benefiting the Atlanta community. 
 
All proceeds from tour sponsorships benefit the CGC Community Fund. The Fund, founded in 2008, previously was funded solely by CGC member donations. Proceeds from the 2019 and 2023 Tours have been a windfall to the Fund which was able to award an additional $125,000 to local organizations. Examples include funding of a trip to the Atlanta Botanical Garden for homeless children from the Boyce Ansley School, plantings at Atlanta Memorial Park, a summer program to educate local scout troops about natural resources and conservation, critical tree care following a record freeze at Historic Oakland Cemetery, supplies for a horticultural therapy program at Skyland Trail, a pollinator and edible garden at a local elementary school, and the installation of a camellia garden in honor of Philip Trammell Shutze, a neo-classical architect, at the Atlanta History Center.