Bayou Bend Gardens
When Bayou Bend is closed, you can visit the gardens on a virtual tour.
► To take your tour, text BAYOU to 56512
Gardens Overview
This American sycamore in the Euterpe Garden is a “champion” tree.
In 1925, Ima Hogg and her brothers, Will and Mike, selected 14 acres of natural woodlands and winding ravines for their home in the newly developed Houston neighborhood of River Oaks. She began planning the gardens before construction began on the home in 1927. The gardens at Bayou Bend reflect her love of beauty, flowers, and natural woodlands; her passion for history and all things classical; her meticulous eye for detail, proportion, and scale; her keen sense of color; her hands-on, experimental approach to gardening; and her continuous personal supervision.
Ima Hogg created formal gardens that reflect the Country Place era (1880–1920) in American landscape design, garden formats that were outgrowths of the classical architecture of the house, formal garden "rooms" extending from the house, and classical muses as themes. She selected a goddess (Diana) and two muses (Clio and Euterpe) from Greek mythology to anchor her north gardens.
The Gardens
Clio Garden at Bayou Bend
Diana Garden at Bayou Bend
Carla Garden at Bayou Bend
East Garden at Bayou Bend
Butterfly Garden at Bayou Bend
White Garden at Bayou Bend
The Bayou Bend gardens were, in Ima Hogg’s words, “nothing but a dense thicket” when she started to develop the property in the late 1920s. Undaunted, she created a series of gracious and beautiful gardens intended to be outdoor rooms for living and entertaining, not just views to be admired from within the house. Her brother Will encouraged her to plant magnolias, crape myrtles, and other flowering trees with Southern associations. She also planted camellias and is credited with introducing azaleas to Houston. Most of Bayou Bend’s gardens evolved between 1934 and 1942 and changed little until 1957, when she gave her estate and collection to the MFAH. In 1961, she invited River Oaks Garden Club to supervise the gardens permanently. Since then, the organization’s volunteers have devoted their time and talents to preserving and enhancing the gardens. Thanks to River Oaks Garden Club, organic gardening methods were initiated, and Bayou Bend became the only formal public garden in Texas to practice organic gardening.
The Woodland Ravines
Woodland ravine at Bayou Bend
Woodland trails at Bayou Bend
The suspension bridge across Buffalo Bayou at Bayou Bend
The beauty of native trees and shrubs form a spectacular backdrop to the formal gardens surrounding the house at Bayou Bend. Ima Hogg’s desire was that the surrounding woodlands remain more or less natural, as they are today. The River Oaks Garden Club and the Museum’s head of gardens and landscape operations, Bart Brechter, are guided by a master plan adopted to ensure that the gardens and surrounding woodlands continue into perpetuity as a historic, but not static, site. The gardens remain a living testament to Ima Hogg’s life, vision, and generosity in Houston.
Education programs at Bayou Bend receive generous funding from Houston Junior Woman's Club; Mary Lynn and Steve Marks; Susan Vaughan Foundation; Denise Monteleone; Ms. Bobbie Nau; William A. and Madeline Welder Smith Foundation; and additional generous donors.
These education programs also receive income from funds provided by the Carol and Les Ballard Endowment; the Judy and Charles Tate Endowment; the James William Glanville and Nancy Hart Glanville Endowment; the Barbara Graham Williams Endowment; and the Bayou Bend Bonnie A. Campbell Education Programs Endowment.