Gourley Garden

GOURLEY GARDEN

The Gourley Garden is located at the top of the ridge that gives the Rocky Ridge Historic District its name. The house arises amid lush gardens, a canopy of aged oaks and unique, ancient rock outcroppings. Dating to 1928, it was built by John Nathaniel Couch, chair of the University of North Carolina botany department and an associate of noted professor and botanist, William Coker. Surrounded by a fieldstone wall similar to the walls built on the UNC campus, the expansive yard, gardens and walls have been meticulously cared for and restored by Sara Gourley and Rob Euler, who bought the property in 2015.

A unique feature of the land is the appearance of massive boulders, many millions of years old, scattered throughout the area, which along with 55 mature trees, meander along a path to define a woodland garden.  Understory shade-loving plants in this garden include a native fringe tree, parsley hawthorne, gordonia and serviceberry trees, and a number of native beautyberries. Hosta and other shade lovers border the woodland garden. In contrast, a sun garden alongside the stone patio and pergola blooms with peonies, clematis, ranunculus and other spring-bloomers. 

In front of the house, water lilies and other aquatic plants surround a stone-bordered pond featuring plants such as agave, jack-in-the-pulpit, maypop, hydrangea, ferns, and green-and-gold.  The pond hosts a chorus of frogs in the spring, and many birds enjoy the waterfall and water on a year-round basis. 

A native plant garden at the low point of the lawn includes an Eastern sweetshrub, mountain mint, rattlesnake master, a buttonbush and Joe Pye weed.  The small back garden includes sweet box, two large Edgeworthia chrysantha (fragrant paperbush), dogwoods, camellias and a Fatsia japonica.  

In addition to shading the land, the mature trees provide refuge for the many animals that visit or live here, as well as for the many bluebirds and Carolina wrens that inhabit the dozen bird houses tucked in and among the trees. Additionally, the garden is home to a number of whimsical garden sculptures, acquired over the years. The most recent additions, acquired from the 2025 NCBG sculpture exhibit, are the Butterfly Gate and Scarlett the Fox. 

LOOK FOR:

• Bartzella Peony – Paeonia Itoh ‘Bartzella’ 

• Whale’s Tongue Agave - Agave ovatifolia ‘Vanzie’

• Zephirine Drouhin Climbing Rose – Rosa ‘Zéphirine Drouhin’

• *Pignut Hickory – Carya glabra

SUMMARY

A myriad of native plants, a canopy of aged trees and unique rock outcroppings surround the historic house. Situated on the highest residential point in Chapel Hill. John Nathaniel Couch, UNC professor of botany and an associate of noted university botanist, William Coker, created the gardens and filled them with specimen trees and plants. Geologically unique rock outcroppings are among many unusual aspects of the Laurel Hill area property, built in 1928.