Outer Banks Aboretum and Teaching Garden

Open since 2002, the Outer Banks Arboretum and Teaching Garden was created to provide the community with horticultural education, to help with property enhancement and also as a memorial acknowledgement. The Garden is located next to the Baum Center in Kill Devil Hills - also near the Kill Devil Hills Library and behind the KDH Post Office.

It’s a small, quiet and secluded area with a brick pathway that winds through the aquatic, dune and butterfly sections that make up the garden. Besides providing locals and visitors a place of relaxation and visual beauty, the goal of the garden is to test and display labeled plantings and to investigate and showcase planting practices that are most suitable for the Outer Banks’ coastal climate. Featured at the garden are a number of salt- and pest-resistant native plants that are able to thrive in this area despite its often challenging, coastal microclimates of beach dunes, wetlands and maritime forests.

The Arboretum and Teaching Garden was founded through collaborative efforts of Dare County’s NC Cooperative Extension Service, Extension Master Gardeners and the Dare Master Gardener Volunteer Association (MGVA). Among the project's partners are Outer Banks Community Foundation, the Outer Banks Visitors Bureau and the Town of Kill Devil Hills. The Dunes of Dare Garden Club maintains the Butterfly Garden. Dare MGVA, along with private contributions and memorials and community grants, fund the Garden.