New Orleans may be known for carnival festivities, fine food and great jazz, but it also has some terrific gardens. The annual Secret Gardens Tour lets visitors into some of the most spectacular private gardens in the neighborhood of Uptown in New Orleans, Louisiana.

This year’s tour is from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. March 12, 2010, and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 13, 2010. The gardens are located on Exposition Boulevard along Audubon Park. During the tours, volunteer docents direct visitors through the gardens. Each participant receives a detailed description of each garden in the program. In addition, the tour includes landscape designers in each garden — usually the expert who designed and/or maintains the gardens.

For Road Trips Gardeners who have questions about the design and structure of the garden or the viability of the plant material and conditions in which it grows, there will be someone who can answer questions. Uptown is one of the most picturesque areas of New Orleans—a private neighborhood beloved for its architecture and variety of its gardens but also an area not often revealed to the public.

The purpose of The Secret Gardens Tour is to raise awareness of acquired brain injury (ABI), and the proceeds provide educational and charitable support for ABI survivors and their families.