Did You Know the Garden State Has a Gardens Trail?

Duke Farms, HIllsborough Township, NJ

Yes! New Jersey, nicknamed the Garden State, is promoting the Jersey Gardens Trails, a web-based guide to help you find New Jersey’s gardens, sculpture gardens, farms, orchards, arboretums, wineries and vineyards.

How do you get more information about the Gardens Trail?

Go to VisitNJ.org, then click the Gardens tab.  Clicking on the tab will take you to Gardens & Arboretums landing page.  Here, you’ll find  a list of the gardens, sculpture gardens, farms, orchards, arboretums, wineries and vineyards throughout the state. It’s a fantastic resource for agritourism information in New Jersey.

But…

Getting to the Jersey Gardens Trail is not straightforward. If you click the Gardens tab from the VisitNJ.org page under "Things To Do", it takes you to the “Gardens & Arboretums” page.  At the bottom of that page, there’s Jersey Gardens Trail information with a box that says, “Grow Your Rewards”.  Similarly, there’s a “Gardens of the Garden State” page on VisitNJ.org.  At the bottom of that page, you’ll see Jersey Gardens Trail with a box “Grow Your Rewards”. It seems that the way to get to Jersey Gardens trail is to go to either of those two pages.

You can also get to Jersey Gardens Trail by typing “Jersey Gardens Trail” in the search box on the VisitNJ page.  Once you’re there, you’ll see a box to sign up for a web-based program to redeem for rewards like patches, water bottles, etc.

Can you also find state parks on the garden trail?

The Jersey Gardens Trail doesn’t include state parks or historic sites.  It’s specifically for agritourism. 

But…

After I signed up and went to Jersey Gardens Trail on my phone, I could add the “Jersey State Parks Passport”.  Click on the Passport link, then enter your telephone number. 

You can also find a park or historic site without signing up for the Jersey Gardens Trail, by going to the New Jersey DEP (Department of Environmental Protection) website, https://www.nj.gov/dep/parksandforests/

Like the “Jersey State Parks Passport” link, you can add “Jersey Brews Trail” or you can just find breweries in the search box on the VisitNJ website, by typing “breweries” without adding the “Jersey Brews Trail” link.  Oddly, even though VisitNJ states that part of the purpose of the Jersey Gardens Trail is to promote wineries, there’s no wineries link to add.

Does the Jersey Gardens Trail give you free entrance?

Nope, unless the sites are already free, you’ll need to pay the entrance fee. 

What’s the Verdict?

The Jersey Gardens Trail is  a cool way to find gardens, farms, wineries and more, but  it seems more for the purpose of earning rewards. It’s great if you want swag, but if you’re not interested in collecting rewards, it’s still useful for finding gardens information on your phone.  Or just go to VisitNJ.org, click on the Gardens tab, and find what you’re looking for.