The Reynolda House in Winston-Salem, North Carolina was the world’s largest bungalow when it was completed in 1917, with breezeways intended to circulate fresh air for respiratory well-being, access to clean drinking water, ample space to roam, and gardens that produced vegetables and flowers. It was conceived as “an expression of ecological and personal health,” says Phil Archer, the Betsy Main Babcock deputy director.
The house was built for tobacco tycoon R.J. Reynolds and his family, and the contradiction between the fortune that funded the construction and the intent behind the estate is hard to ignore.
Still, the house lived up to its original promise, and shared the bounty. When it was first built, the garden was intentionally placed at the edge of the estate so Winston-Salem residents could enjoy it, too. R.J.’s wife, Katherine, frequently invited the public to visit the grounds on certain dates and times through newspaper announcements.
She hosted field days with three-legged races and live bands and staged a rendition of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” with local schools. She even had her gardeners grow every flower mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays, Archer says.
While Reynolda remained a private estate during Katherine Reynolds’s lifetime, her daughters expanded public access after her death. By the 1940s, the gardens were open without charge year-round and attracted thousands of visitors during cherry blossom season. When the property later passed to Wake Forest University, the deed reinforced that mission, requiring the gardens to remain open and free “for the respite and recreation of all mankind.”
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The garden was intentionally placed at the edge of the estate when it was first built, so the public could also enjoy it. – Photos courtesy of Reynolda House Museum & Gardens
Now, the estate has evolved into a living landscape where education, conservation, and community programming build on the Reynolds family’s impulse to share the gardens. Today, more than 50 volunteers are on the roster and roughly 200,000 visitors walk the grounds annually. The modern-day gardens offer a range of programs, from hands-on horticulture workshops to youth education programs, bringing the gardens to life in every season.
A Living Classroom
The gardens are a popular spot for field trips. When students from local underserved elementary schools step off the buses at Reynolda Gardens, they first walk through a white arbor overlooking the formal gardens.
“You can see it in their faces before anyone ever says anything — that this is a different kind of learning space,” says Janie Bass, the garden’s coordinator of early education, who spent a decade working in Title I schools with low-income students before moving into her current role.
For many of these students, “the happiest place they ever go to is school,” she says, which makes the opportunity to spend the day learning outdoors especially meaningful.
The garden’s community programs, including field trips, are supported through grants, collaborations with Wake Forest University, and partnerships with local businesses. Trader Joe’s even donates flowers so students can dissect them.
Field trips connect students to the land in practical, hands-on ways: planting in the soil, harvesting vegetables, or simply noticing the roles of insects, wildlife, and even humans in the larger ecosystem.
“I grew up playing in the woods,” says Jon Roethling, director of the gardens. “So it’s important to me that we’re this resource for getting kids outside … and doing things like digging potatoes out of the gardens, or going to the creek and finding salamanders. I think those are core experiences that kids need to have.”
Bass remembers when one first-grader watched members of the horticulture team cut the eyes off potatoes and plant them. The student’s eyes widened, Bass recalls, as he said, “‘Wait, a potato comes from a potato!’ … You could just see the shift happen in real time. He wasn’t just saying it, he understood it,” she says.
Another day, a group of third-graders gathered around a decomposing tree log on the woodland trail to learn how organic matter breaks down into soil. A young girl paused, Bass says, crumbling the soil in her palms, realizing that the trees eventually break down into the soil.
Those moments when something clicks for a student are her favorite. “If they can touch it, observe it, and then put it into their own words, it’s going to stick with them in a completely different way,” she says. And, she hopes, these experiences will awaken their sense of environmental stewardship.
Serving a Diverse Population
In addition to hosting field trips, the gardens support the broader community by donating the majority of their produce to H.O.P.E. of Winston Salem (Help Our People Eat), which provides nutritious meals for children and fresh fruits and vegetables for those fighting food insecurity. Roethling says the gardens give about 2,500 pounds of produce a year to the cause.
In the summer, the gardens host a Young Naturalist Camp. Campers make fresh lemonade from the orangerie, explore the property’s wetlands, and take culinary classes. Scholarships are available for Title I students to attend.
– Photos courtesy of Reynolda House Museum & Gardens
Young Explorers, an early childhood program for children ages 2 to 5, hosts seasonal events like May Day celebrations where children dance around the garden’s peonies with ribbon sticks and make May Day baskets to leave on a neighbor’s doorstep. To make this program accessible to all, Bass runs another version for free in Spanish. After securing a grant that provided travel vouchers, attendance doubled.
Other seasonal programs draw large crowds and long wait lists: a pumpkin patch and hayrides in the autumn, wreath-making workshops during the holidays, cherry blossom teas and flower arranging in the spring.
More than a century after Katherine Reynolds imagined the gardens as a space to share, that spirit still invigorates all that the garden represents. A place that’s not so much a relic of wealth, but a working space for the community.
Simple Garden Experiments to Try at Home
Give kids their own “aha” moments from your home garden.
1. Test a “shade plant” in the sun
Reynolda Gardens director Jon Roethling encourages gardeners to experiment more freely than they might think they should.
“Some things that you think of as just a shade plant,” he says, “maybe try it in the sun. It might surprise you.”
Try planting the same variety in two different locations and observe differences in growth, blooms, and pollinator activity over several weeks.
2. Watch which flowers pollinators actually prefer
Rather than assuming what pollinators prefer, Roethling encourages people to observe what insects are naturally drawn toward.
Plant a few related flowers — such as a native species and a cultivated variety — and spend time watching which blooms attract the most bees or butterflies.
“Pay attention,” Roethling says. “The big thing is just to take the time to be present in the garden. … Have a glass of iced tea, and just watch.”
3. Leave one “annual” in the ground over winter
At Reynolda, horticulturists sometimes leave tropical plants in the soil longer than expected, just to see what survives.
Even if a plant is labeled an annual in your region, experiment by leaving one in place and monitoring whether it returns in spring.
“It’s always fun for me every year going, ‘Look at that. It’s coming back — I didn’t expect that,’” Roethling says.
4. Dig into soil decomposition
This one is inspired by Reynolda’s woodland trail lessons. Children can observe decomposition firsthand by crumbling fallen leaves or rotting wood and watching organic matter slowly transform into soil over time.
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