• Visit
  • Visit
  • Daily Activities
  • Group Tours
  • For Kids & Families
  • Rental Facilities
  • Gardens & Landscape
    • Diane Ott Whealy
    • Garden Workshops
    • Seed Saving
    • Heirloom Plants and Seeds
    • Blum's Almanac
    • Garden History & Restoration
    • Miksch Garden
    • Family Gardens of Salt Street
    • Single Brothers' Garden
    • Triebel Lot Garden
    • Garden Tours
    • Seasonal Work -Summer-
  • MESDA
  • Exhibits

Gardens have been an essential part of life in Salem since the town was established in 1766. Salem was described by a Salisbury, North Carolina newspaper, The Carolina Watchman in 1845:

Its style and manners (are) very city-like and no place of the same size contains as many plants and flowers.  In every window, yard, and garden you behold them and some of very beautiful and rare order.  If a great fancy for flowers argues a corresponding taste for all that’s beautiful and lovely, then the people of Salem are unsurpassed.

Old Salem Museums & Gardens celebrates the history of this unique Moravian town through the preservation and restoration of the picturesque buildings, gardens and landscape. 

The Horticulture program remains focused on creating a landscape reminiscent of early Salem where utility, practicality and beauty united. The gardens today feature open-pollinated heirlooms, with seed saving a core mission. From the Miksch family backyard garden to the expansive Single Brothers’ Garden, Old Salem’s award-winning restorations will inspire ideas for your own garden.

We invite you to come see the beautiful gardens, experience the restored landscape, and discover historic methods and practices that remain relevant today and are called “sustainable.”