Take the Kids: Stretch out and play outside at Hill Ridge Farms' Sunflower Festival
Last year was a rough year for Hill Ridge Farms, the beloved family destination in Youngsville with a sprawling outdoor playground, sprayground and seasonal activities. COVID kept the playground closed for the year, but there was a big bright spot for the farm — its new sunflower festival featuring eight acres of sunflowers of all kinds of varieties.
During a summer when there wasn't much else to do, it was a hit. And this year, the Sunflower Festival is back and bigger. Now, there are hundreds of thousands of sunflowers blooming across 10 acres. And the playground is open. So not only can you walk through a giant field of sunflowers, but your kids also can wear themselves out on the giant tube slide, jumping pillow and hay bale jump.
"We're just so excited that families are coming out," Jennifer Garry of Hill Ridge Farms tells me.
I took my 11-year-old daughter and her good friend to Hill Ridge last week to check out the flowers. The tweens thought they were a little too old for the playground. They'd been, they reminisced, for a field trip in kindergarten or first grade. Based on their tepid interest, I figured we'd fly through the playground before checking out the sunflowers. Not so much. The girls loved "reliving their childhood," as they said — lining up for that giant tube slide, competing in the duck race, running through the sprayground and waiting to dry off so they could jump on the jumping pillow.
Garry has seen it before. It's nice, we agreed, to see the big kids have as much fun as the little ones. (In their defense, the jumping pillow is a lot of fun.)
After about 90 minutes of play, we went out to the sunflowers. You can either walk there from the playground. (It's just behind the tube slide.) Or you can take a five-minute hayride, which meanders around the farm property before stopping at the sunflowers. Once you stop, on your left, is a patch of sunflowers of all kinds of colors and varieties. On your right is another field with more traditional sunflower types. There are some picnic tables in between with a few educational displays about the butterflies you might see in the field.
Your ticket gets you one sunflower stem, which is a great deal because lots of the stems come with several sunflowers together. You may end up with 10 or so blooms per stem. Each additional stem is $1 a piece. Colorful zinnias are two blooms for $1. The farm will provide plastic bags and water to help keep your blooms fresh on the ride home.
A couple of important things to note: Bring your own clippers to snip your blooms. Also, the sunflower fields are full of bees, doing their job. They were no problem for my group, but there were a couple of kids on our hayride who didn't love so many bees so close once we walked into the fields.
Hill Ridge is open 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday. The last hayride to the sunflower field is at 7:30 p.m. each night. Tickets are $14 for ages 2 to 64 and $13 for ages 65 and up. On Wednesdays, get one free adult admission for each purchase child's admission. Tickets include play in the park along with a trip to the sunflower fields and one sunflower stem. (Be sure to bring some actual cash if you plan on buying a few extra sunflower stems. Only cash is accepted at the field.)
Hill Ridge has tons of bathrooms and plenty of places to wash your hands. When we were there on a Thursday morning, the crowd was light and only a couple other groups were on our hayride. There was plenty of space to stretch out. And, of course, it was all outside, which makes it a perfect activity right now.
Hill Ridge is at 703 Tarboro Rd., Youngsville.
Looking for more sunflower destinations? Check out this post.
