WRAL Azalea Garden — Attraction in Raleigh

A GORGEOUS flower garden!!!! 😮😮😮👍👍 It is 95% azaleas of course, but, they have every possible color and variety planted there! The past 5-10 years they even have thousands of tulips planted right at the entrance into the garden pathways area. There’s a beautiful old 3-level high stone fountain, surrounded by flowers. As you can imagine, hundreds of people come here to this garden to shoot photos, brides, seniors, families, etc. There are cool pathways all throughout the azalea bushes, it’s like a maze! SO beautiful! There’s a big open grassy area where people have a lot of outdoor weddings at. If you go up the steps in between the two buildings, there’s an awesome fountain up there! This is thee most photographic public place you can go to in Raleigh for free. It’s so nice they allow the public to visit here for free whenever we want to! The month of April is typically the peak season for seeing all the azaleas in full bloom. Ya just gotta drive by and check periodically. It is one of the places ya need to visit yearly, Pullen Park in the end of March, The WRAL Azalea Garden in April, Duke Gardens in May, The Raleigh Rose Garden in July, and then Historic Oak View Park and Historic Yates Mill in October and November when the leaves all change...

Used to love this place. The last couple years, but this year especially, it has been overrun by portrait photographers. Dozens of groups there every time I went. You can't walk any of thr paths, each one is blocked by someone posing and shooting. And don't even try and sit peacefully at the big tree with the circular bench on the back. Every few minutes someone will start standing in front of you taking pictures or posing, or just ask of you could leave.

They need to get this under control. These professional photographers using it for their own gain is ruining the public being able to enjoy it.

And now other groups are starting to pick up on being allowed to selfishly abuse the area. Last time I was there someone took over the center terrace for a birthday party. Took the whole space, even rearranged the tables to setup their buffet for the whole afternoon. And another group setup Cornhole boards which entirely blocked getting to the field from the main walk. On my way out, a few more birthday groups were showing up.

Before long it will...

My wife and I went to WRAL to see the tower lighting December 2nd 2019 not the azalea gardens since it was not the season. However smiles, Christmas cheer and just really nice down to earth staff and wonderful people were all around! Mike Maze came out to the crowd and spoke to us just like we had known each other for years and we just thought that was the greatest moment of the evening! I know the tower lighting was the reason for this event but we just felt extra special because the news crew that we watch every night on TV took the time out of their busy schedule to just welcome us and thanked us for watching WRAL! I know it sounds silly but it made our evening! Thanks to everyone at WRAL for being our go to place for news, weather, sports and more. Also thanks for hosting such an awesome event last night and for those of you who weren't there you missed out on a...