Tyler’s azaleas have been blooming right on schedule to show off for tourists, despite February’s ice storm. The city’s woman behind the scenes has the stories behind the 64th annual Azalea Trails a few suggestions to make the tour especially memorable this year.
Mike Landess: For UT Tyler Radio I’m Mike Landess. The 64th annual Azalea and Spring Flower Trail is here, and it runs through April 9. I’m joined now by Susan Travis, vice president of tourism and servicing for Visit Tyler, Texas. Welcome.
Susan Travis: Thank you. I’m happy to be here.
Mike Landess: Springtime in Tyler is always colorful, but surely there had to be some concern about possible damage from those late winter storms.
Susan Travis: Yes, of course. There always is concern about the azaleas. No matter when the weather, a lot of times the concern is, “Are they gonna bloom on time? Are they gonna bloom too early? Are they gonna bloom too late?” And that’s always a challenge. Every year, we start getting calls sometimes in January or February people asking, when are the azaleas going to be blooming?
(I’ll say) Well, I’m sorry. I don’t know the answer to that. That’s up to Mother Nature.
This year they did bloom early, because we had all those really warm days. I really honestly think the azaleas are really confused this year because we’ve got some already on their way out.
They’ve been blooming now for tour. Weeks or longer, and they’re already on their way out. We’ve got some that haven’t even started blooming. We’ve got some that are fully bloomed right now, so it’s just kind of all over the place. So now is a great time to come.
Mike Landess: So there always has to be some concern about too early, too late.
Susan Travis: Yes, always. There always is. And of course, weather. We worry about if we get storms — are they gonna damage the blooms if they’re already blooming? We do a lot of praying during that time that everything will be OK, and it usually is, even when we had the deep freeze two years ago when we had Snowmageddon and a lot of the azaleas were lost.
Mike Landess: Sure. Beat ours up a lot, right?
Susan Travis: Yeah, it was there were some were lost completely. They had to be dug up and replanted. And a lot of the homeowners did replace a lot at that time, but it was really cool because everything was really late that year. But when the ones that survived started blooming, it was phenomenal how beautiful they were.
The colors were so vibrant, and we were just amazed how, because we really didn’t know after we had that deep freeze what was gonna happen. And so, we were so thankful. And visitors were coming in later. The Azalea Trail dates were already over, but we still had people coming in to see the azaleas, so that was really cool.
Usually if the azaleas are late, we use that to our advantage. And so when people come in during the Azalea Trail dates, and they’re disappointed because they haven’t bloomed yet, or they’re just beginning to bloom, (they’ll say) “I was really hoping to see ’em at their peak.”
We say, well come back, come back in two weeks. And, a lot of them do because we get a lot of day trippers from Dallas and Fort Worth and if they don’t have too far to go, they’re more than happy to come back. So many people are that passionate about these areas and wanting to see the actual blooms.
Mike Landess: Let me walk this back a little bit. 64th year? It’s been going a long time. How does this actually work? Are these private homeowners that plant all of these things and they pay for everything?
Susan Travis: Yes. These homes, these gardens that you see, these azaleas are all, if we didn’t have the homeowners, these wonderful homeowners, that live in the Azalea District, if we didn’t have them, we wouldn’t have the Azalea Spring Flower Trail.
Ultimately we are thankful for those people because they work really hard to keep their flower garden, which is the garden that everybody walks through. Thousands of people, not just during Azalea Trail, but one woman opens her garden year round. She just wants to share it because she says it’s God’s garden.
Mike Landess: Step back for just a second and tell us a little bit about the lady that owns this property.
Susan Travis: Her name is Joan Pyron. She lives on West Dobbs street, two doors down from the Women’s building. She has this beautiful, huge backyard garden with a pergola that you’ve seen in many pictures.
He (her husband) built this beautiful greenhouse, and he had orchids. He loved orchids, so he grew orchids in that greenhouse. It’s a little cottage-looking greenhouse. Beautiful. He built that several years ago, and they added a wrought-iron fence along the property like along the backyard property, and there’s a creek that flows through that’s been there for many years.
And so there’s a big stone wall where the creek is. So there’s a bridge that goes across, you can go back to that part of the garden. And she added fencing over where the creek walls are so that children can’t fall into the creek wall.
And so things like that, just over the years, things have been added. When they moved in there almost 30 years ago, the property was overgrown, it was a mess. I mean, I don’t know what it looked like, because I wasn’t living here at that time. But I’ve heard stories, Joan tells stories, about that, and they worked so hard and over all these years they’ve just made it better and better.
And so it’s been featured in Southern Living Magazine, Texas Highways and so many. AAA Explorer had a big article, I believe it was 2021, the year of Snowmageddon. And we got so many people coming into town for the azaleas because of that article. It was like a six-page spread.
So yeah, it’s a wonderful place. Everybody, I always, we always tell people, be sure you go check out the garden.
Mike Landess: What all’s involved in the tour? How does it work??
Susan Travis: Well, it’s 10-plus miles of driving through residential districts. There’s two trails. The Dobbs Trail, the Lindsay Trail.
They, at times, they overlap each other at times. Separate. And so what I tell people is if you have time, drive through, do one, kind of go down, make a circle, come back up and hit the areas that you didn’t get when you went down, when you were going south, and when you come back north, hit those areas.
And so, and make sure you get over on the east side of Broadway because there is a section of the Azalea and Spring Flower Trail on the east side of Broadway, like around Second Street and Sneed and Belmont. There’s some beautiful azaleas over there. You can drive through at your own leisure and get out and walk where you want to.
Definitely get out and walk around the block where the Pyron garden is. Also, this year we’re gonna have Cowboys carriages. He’s got a 12-passenger wagon that’s beautiful, that he pulls with horses. And then he’s got a smaller, like a doctor’s carriage.
It holds like four people comfortably. And he’s gonna do carriage rides through the trails, and he’ll do different length rides. So if you want just a $5 ride, $5 per person, you get one. It’s not very long, but you get to experience that. The clip-clopping of the horses on the brick streets.
It’s nothing like that sound. The homeowners who live out in that district, they love it. They just love hearing the horses clip clop on the streets.
Mike Landess: Our guest has been Susan Travis, vice president for tourism and servicing for Visit Tyler, Texas. You’ll find a link to more information about the 64th annual Azalea and Spring Flower Trail on our website, kvut.org.
You’ll also find this interview to hear again or to share. I’m Mike Landess for UT Tyler Radio.