There are herb and vegetable gardens at the village, planted and tended as they might have been when this was a thriving 19th-century Shaker community. Shaker Village is about 35 miles southwest of Lexington via US 68. On about a half acre on the Georgetown College campus there are trees and shrubs, as well as herbaceous and flowering plants native to Kentucky, and in particular the Bluegrass region. Small formal perennial gardens along Georgetown's Main Street use native herbaceous plants to create a butterfly and hummingbird garden, a prairie and savanna garden, a prairie medicinals garden and a woodland medicinals garden. The arboretum is located at Main Street and Giddings Drive in Georgetown.
Admission is free.
Georgetown is about 13 miles north of Lexington. Bibb lettuce, also known as limestone lettuce, was developed by amateur horticulturist John B. Bibb in his backyard garden in Frankfort, Kentucky, sometime around 1865. You can walk by the Bibb-Burnley House on Wapping Street in Frankfort. If you love irises, do take the time to drive about 34 miles north of Lexington to Wyle Wynde Nursery and Iris Garden, located about 6 miles east of Cynthiana on US 62. Owner-gardeners Norvel and Rita Glascock produce a breathtaking variety of plants.