Brookgreen Garden Tour

This weekend I went to another of the garden estates around the area.  Like its English forebearers great estates were established here in the 17th-19th centuries, and also similarly, they are now the sites of some of the wonderful gardens in this area. From the website:

This was a rice plantation, one of the largest crops grown in antebellum times.

"During the Seventeenth Century, English settlers first came to the Carolina territory from Barbados and other Caribbean islands.  A plantation economy was well established on the islands, and the planters were looking to expand their holdings.  From the beginning, they brought enslaved Africans to work the new lands. The planters at The Oaks, Brookgreen, Springfield and Laurel Hill plantations (the four former plantations that make up the present-day Brookgreen Gardens) established family dynasties and were leaders of the rice planting elite during the antebellum years.  However, the success of these great rice plantations rested on the backs of the enslaved Africans.  As early as the mid-eighteenth century, a majority of the population in the Lowcountry of South Carolina were enslaved Africans and during the late antebellum period they accounted for almost 90 percent of the population in the region. They provided physical labor, skill and technology required for rice cultivation and production and infused the environment with their customs, traditions, crafts, and language known today as Gullah-Geechee culture."

Obviously this was a time of great wealth and fortune for a few, at the cost of freedom and hardship of the many.  

Today, its a sculpture garden

I was very taken with this statue and pool

Ballerina Roses and Daisies

Not all of the sculptures were classical!

What are considered weeds here have their own place!

Quite a bit of woodlands too

In the Child's Garden

Slightly cooler than Charleston, the tall snapdragons are still alive!

A scenic view on the walk

Love this pool

....a lot

The White Border (with Griffon)

One of the few copper statues

Foxgloves are at their height of glory

more Foxgloves

More snapdragons, with a larkspur or two

I think this is a Monsieur Tiller

The Muses in Fountain form

Another shot, it was beautiful

I was particularly taken by this sculpture holding a sculpture

Knockouts!

Snapdragons, foxglove

Its a formal garden but many portions have that slightly wild abandoned look that I love

I visited on a stormy day, in the 'in-between' season... after the spring magnificence but before the summer abundance... but still it was beautiful and informative.  You need about 2 hours to explore the formal gardens, and an additional 2 to walk the nature walks, plantation/rice fields area, see the butterflies and the zoo.