Lambertville Hidden Gardens Tour: 2025
Once a year, the public is invited to wander through private gardens in Lambertville. You’ll be delighted by what you find.
In 1892, Lambertville area women founded The Kalmia Club, which was designed to foster personal growth through social meetings and discussions about art, literature, and culture. In 133 years, their mission hasn’t changed.
Today, the Kalmia Club is a non-profit organization that remains true to its roots, with members supporting the local community by embracing diverse perspectives, building partnerships, and inspiring shared solutions.
The Kalmia Club hosts the annual Hidden Gardens of Lambertville Tour, with proceeds benefitting the Kalmia Club’s scholarship program.
Hidden Gardens Tour: What to Expect
The Hidden Gardens of Lambertville Tour is a well organized, grassroots, and volunteer-driven event that has been happening annually for over 25 years.
The tour is self-guided, and easy to navigate. All of the gardens are located within walking distance of each other, and each year’s tour is unique.
Some gardens are curated, meaning the owners hired designers and workers. Others are sewn by the owners’ labor of love, and some are a combination.
On the day of the tour, you get a booklet containing a map with the garden locations clearly marked, and each garden has an informative statement. You also get a ticket, which gets checked when you visit each garden on the tour.
Tickets
The Kalmia Club usually sells advance tickets on their website, but you can also purchase tickets the day of the event. If you purchase in advance, your tickets will be waiting for you when you arrive to pick them up on tour day.
Weather
The event happens rain or shine. Obviously, good weather = more people.
If you don’t care about rain, get your ticket early. If rain is a dealbreaker for you, buy tickets the day of the event so you can be sure the weather is nice.
Parking
Arrive early. Lambertville gets crowded and parking spots go quickly.
2025 Highlights
Nine gardens were on display in 2025, which was just right. It meant you could complete the tour in a couple of hours, and you could do it earlier or later in the day depending on your schedule. Below is a broad view of the 2025 landscape.
Nancy and Jim’s Garden
Surrounding a house that was featured (albeit briefly) in the movie Echo Valley, this garden was designed to be a sacred space that heals mind, body, and soul.
Some of the plantings included beebalm, cone flower, phlox, catmint, sweet spire, alvia, iris, lavender, sedum, peony, allium, and clamtis—amongst others.
Details included an outdoor patio with table and umbrella, a sun dial on a pedestal, built-in Lynx grill and fridge, a kidney shaped pool, and the perfectly trimmed green lawn that looked like it was edged with an Exacto knife.
The straight and curved lines balanced well with the natural stone, water, plants and grass. Each tone complimented the brick walls, gray slate patchwork siding, and white, black, and red trim of this elegant home. Pathways were highlighted by pinks and purples, suggesting beauty and effortless rejuvenation.
Kami and Rich’s Garden
This rustic oasis was most definitely hidden—you entered through a secret door in a shed-like outbuilding, which took you down a fairytale path to a cozy back yard decorated with a collection of interesting and repurposed found objects.
There were many things to see, yet the artistic items didn’t overwhelm. The colors and textures of the industrial elements blended seamlessly into the plants and flowers, creating a well balanced and conversation-inspiring atmosphere.
The carefully crafted environment contained Sparkle Week finds like a wash tub turned planter, a water pump geranium, an antique window frame flower pot, a wire and wood birdcage, and a collection of terra cotta pots arranged just so.
From the half-moon on the outhouse door to the old croquet set that suggested a game might break out any moment, the only thing missing was your company.
A Wide Variety
Some gardens are not so hidden, because they’re partially visible from the street. However, being welcomed on the property on tour day is preferable to nonchalantly peering through the hedges from the sidewalk on any other day.
When you see a familiar place from a different angle in someone else’s back yard, your mental map expands and you experience Lambertville anew.
If you attended the 2025 hidden gardens tour, you saw the perfectly-spiraled climbing hydrangea that’s been 12 years in the making, and you were inspired by uniquely personal spaces designed for Yoga, meditation, and napping.
At one stop, a small back yard was turned into a patio with a hot tub. Instead of storing a parked car in what was once an external garage, the structure was converted into a TV hideout with tea lights illuminating a comfy, blue couch.
One thing is for sure, Lambertville gardeners have a sense of humor. From handmade birdhouses to well-placed effigies of all kinds, there was always something unique and whimsical to notice if you paid close attention.
“I’m not much of a fussbudget plant person, but I just love seeing these gardens,” one tourist told her cohort as they walked to their next stop.
Michelle’s Garden
One of the newest gardens in town—if not the newest—was still being planted in the weeks leading up to the tour. In fact, this garden was so clean that it seemed tame until you looked in the Dance Shed, which housed refreshments, a disco ball, a zebra head, and a life-sized stuffed animal zebra with a moving head.
(Michelle’s company logo features two zebras, and many of her clients send her zebra-themed stuff. The animatronic zebra was a birthday gift.)
The Dance Shed was fun, but the real show was everything surrounding it. There were crushed stone and mulch pathways, peat moss, brick patios, a marble picnic table under a shade tree, and more foliage than you could name.
Plantings included toad lily, redbud, white pine, lilac, black eyed susan, flag iris, oak leaf and annabelle hydrangea, meadow sage, ostrich fern, and more.
A wooden bench in the center of the property was inscribed with a touching dedication to Michelle’s late father who used to call every Sunday without fail.
The garden had formal seating for sixteen, and enough curiosities to entertain an after-dinner stroll. It would be fascinating to see it in a few years—imagine more sculptures, mature plants, and creative iterations based on regular use.
Lambertville Hidden Gardens Tour Review
If you dig architecture, landscaping, gardening, and planting things, or if you’ve ever just fantasized about wandering around in other people’s backyards (in a non-creepy way), then you’ll love the annual Lambertville Hidden Gardens Tour.
Thanks to the many Kalmia Club volunteers who make it happen and to the Lambertville residents who graciously open their private gardens to the public!
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