Guided tours are offered by the RIVER OAKS GARDEN CLUB members from September through May on Tuesday and Friday at 10am and 11am.

Explore the 14 acre gardens, part of the American Decorative Arts Wing -- Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

The heavy wooded 14 acres along Buffalo Bayou include eight formal gardens. Each are unique in their own way. Three of these are named for statues of goddess and muse that preside over their area, Clio, Diana, and Euturpe. The other gardens are named White, East, Butterfly and Carla.

The gardens are noted for rare Duchess De Caze Pink Camellias that are no longer available in nurseries along with varieties of Azaleas, Gardenias, Antique Roses and seasonal plantings that keep the gardens blooming all year. The topiary Garden of Animals native to Texas is especially unique. It was designed in celebration of our Nation's Bicentennial.

The Gardens of Bayou Bend are the vision of Houston philanthropist, collector and garden enthusiast, Miss Ima Hogg, the only daughter of James Stephen Hogg, Texas' First Native Born Governor. Miss Hogg studied architecture, landscape architecture and garden design, which she adapted to a domestic scale and to the Houston Gulf Coast Climate. Her creation of a total environment encompassing her house and garden is evident as the garden becomes an extension of the house.

The tours emphasize the creation of the garden and Miss Hogg's evolving taste as they developed from 1929 until her death in 1975. Bayou Bend Collection. . .The home of Miss Ima Hogg is a collection of one of the nation's premier holdings for American Art and Antiques displayed in a 28 room setting that trace the evolution of style in American furnishings from the colonial period to the nineteenth century.