Rock City Gardens hosts its 11 th annual Southern Blooms Festival and Founder’s Day celebration May 11-12 and 18-19 from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. New this year, guests can “create a memory and paint it” by personalizing a postcard to send to friends or family, become a part of the art at Rock City by participating in a legacy painting, shop Frieda’s Flowers and try butterfly pea tea at Café 7.
Returning activities include “Walking in Frieda’s Footsteps” tours, gardening advice from Hamilton County Master Gardeners, fairy garden workshops and the kid’s adventure passport. Meet southern belles, listen to a harpist, use water to create an evaporating art piece and participate in a paint-by-number canvas legacy painting.
Tickets are also available for an Enchanted Mother’s Day Luncheon on Sunday, May 12, at 1 p.m. Skip the restaurant crowds with a reserved three-course meal set at a beautifully decorated table, with a flower for Mom, souvenir photo and a live harp performance. Choose from Tuscan Garlic Chicken Cavatelli with roasted fresh vegetables or chicken tenders with green beans and mashed potatoes, and dessert options of blueberry cheesecake or double chocolate cake. To make a reservation or see the schedule of activities at the festival, visit www.seerockcity.com/southernblooms.
Southern cuisine with an unforgettable view is available at Café 7, open 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. where diners can feast their eyes (and taste buds) on Instagram-worthy flower spring rolls with an edible flower rolled inside, and new purple and yellow butterfly pea tea or strawberry sparklers. The Big Rock Grill is bringing back their homemade chicken salad sandwich topped with an edible flower, as well as sugar cookies with green icing reminiscent of Rock City’s opening day in 1932.
Rock City’s 87 th anniversary is May 21 and this event honors the legacy of the attraction’s original gardener, Frieda Utermoehlen Carter. Guests can take a guided, historical tour to learn more about the gardens’ rich heritage at 9 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. daily. A selection of Frieda’s Flowers are available for purchase.
Rock City’s returning community partner for this event is Partnership for Families, Children and Adults’ Family Connections Supervised Visitation Center. They provide a safe, home-like environment for supervised visitations between children and their non-custodial parent. PFCA is a community impact agency that has been empowering people to build better lives through counseling, crisis intervention, prevention and education programs for 140 years. They operate over 20 programs within four centers of service: Victim Support Services, Elder Services, Stability Services and Mission Driven Enterprises. PFCA serves tens of thousands of people in Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama and is a United Way Member Agency, and accredited by the National Council on Accreditation.