Get behind the walls, Road Trips Gardeners! The Santa Fe Botanical Garden has two Sunday afternoon tours of horticultural jewels hidden in historic neighborhoods of New Mexico’s capital city.

The first, at 1 p.m. June 6, 2010, will feature a number of cottage gardens—southwestern style—in a little-known, secluded neighborhood near the rail yard. At 1 p.m. June 13, 2010, the tour takes in three gardens in the historic area bordering the Acequia Madre, plus a Camino Rancheros garden combining European and Asian motifs.

Tickets ($35 each) are available online. At-the-gate tickets will be available on the day of the event for $40 per person for one day or $75/person for both days.

While you’re there, visit the Botanical Garden’s two nature preserves (open May through October): the Leonora Curtin Wetland Preserve and the Ortiz Mountains Educational Preserve. The Botanical Garden at Museum Hill, which will feature “regionally specific and suitable flora”, is under construction. (That’s scorpionweed in the photo.)

More information on traveling in Santa Fe is online.