The Southern Garden History Society is a group of enthusiasts and professionals that fosters and shares scholarly research about our historic gardens, cultural landscapes, and horticultural history through educational programs and publications. We celebrate the beauty and diversity of the South’s historic gardens and encourage their preservation and restoration so they may enrich the lives of others.
Join Southern Garden History Society Now
Register for the Annual Meeting
From Texas to Maryland: Our Southern Garden Odyssey
Over the decades since our founding in 1982, SGHS members have visited scores of landscapes and gardens covering a wide expanse of the southern United States, ranging from Texas to Maryland, Florida to Kentucky and all in between. Some spots have been small and intimate, while others are recognized as internationally important. We are creating and populating a Gardens page as a means of recalling those gardens and their significance with those who joined in, as well as with Society members who were absent. As well, some gardens may be those not yet toured but which we hope very much to add to a future itinerary. An additional goal is that any visitor to our website, member or not, will find these verbal sketches, images, links, and book recommendations a welcome boost to their understanding of the richly vibrant garden history of the American South.
The Elizabethan Gardens | Manteo, North Carolina
In his Summer 2007 Magnolia article “Beyond Boxwood and the Herb Garden” Davyd Foard Hood observed that Manteo’s Elizabethan Gardens joins several other twentieth-century Southern designed … Read More
New Orleans Botanical Garden at City Park | New Orleans, Louisiana
When SGHS held its New Orleans annual meeting in 2004 we were already marking twenty-one years since 1983 and the first such gathering in Atlanta. The … Read More
Savannah Town Plan | Savannah, Georgia
SGHS members have visited Savannah twice for annual meetings, the first occasion coming in 1989 and the second in 2014. Surely each of us came away … Read More
Charleston Gardens | Charleston, South Carolina
The location of two annual meetings, Charleston has also drawn the repeated attention of Magnolia contributors while being the central focus of two books written by … Read More
Magnolia Fall 2025 | Vol. XXXVII, no. 2
The fall 2025 issue of Magnolia includes a preview by Judy Perry of the Society’s 2026 annual meeting in Colonial Williamsburg, to be held April 10-12. Elizabeth Bush … Read More
More articles can be found in our ARCHIVES