CHAPEL HILL -- The Chapel Hill Spring Garden Tour, benefiting the North Carolina Botanical Garden Visitor Education Center starts Saturday, April 12, and runs through Sunday, April 13.

The Chapel Hill Spring Garden Tour is a leisurely, self-guided tour of 10 distinguished private gardens in the neighboring communities of Meadowmont and The Oaks in Chapel Hill. This year's tour includes both recently installed and long-established gardens, culminating in the recently renovated historic gardens of the DuBose House at Meadowmont, to be opened for the first time to the public for this occasion.

Refreshments, exhibits, and a native plant and herb sale will be available at the North Carolina Botanical Garden. Within the gardens, visitors will enjoy live musical performances; watch compost demonstrations; and learn from a "Science in the Garden Program" which includes educational presentations by Witherspoon Rose Culture, the Orange County Master Gardeners, Orange County Agriculture Extension Service, and the North Carolina Plant Rescue Society.

Local landscape designers, Alicia Berry, Cathy Lindsey, Keith Larkin, Jonathan Nyberg, Anita Hicks, and Brian Laughinghouse of DuBose House Gardens, will interpret the garden plantings and highlight ways to garden in a drought, what to plant, and how to manage what is already in the ground.

Visitors will see waterfalls and rock-lined pools; intimate gardens with expansive and imaginative views beyond their borders; a charming orangerie; ceramic fountains; elegant and whimsical garden sculptures; a geometrically laid-out vegetable garden; butterfly garden; knot garden; and a bog garden, all nestled among colorful plantings of surprising combinations.

Contact the NCBG, (919) 962-0522, or visit www.chapelhillgardentour.net for details on ticket outlets and general tour information.