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 this 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.
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February 21, 2025
Tryon Palace | New Bern, North Carolina
Gardens previously discussed have reflected taste, social status, and oftentimes wealth. Completed in 1770, the original Tryon Palace bundled these...
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February 15, 2025
Eudora Welty House & Garden | Jackson, Mississippi
Eudora Welty’s National Historic Landmark home, though never an annual meeting feature, nonetheless has important SGHS connections. Many Society members...
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February 7, 2025
Goodwood Museum & Gardens | Tallahassee, Florida
SGHS annual meetings often draw special attention to a particular person and/or place, as previously noted with the William Paca...
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January 30, 2025
The Gari Melchers Home and Studio—“Belmont” | Falmouth, VA
The story of Belmont’s beginnings can be folded into post-Revolutionary accounts of the Rappahannock River tobacco and milling town of...
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January 24, 2025
William Paca House & Garden | Annapolis, Maryland
Certain gardens enjoy a particularly important place in the collective memory of the Southern Garden History Society, typically relating to...
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January 17, 2025
Bayou Bend | Houston, Texas
To those not from the Deep South, the word “bayou” can carry an element of mystery not found in...
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January 2, 2025
Bellingrath Gardens & Home | Theodore, Alabama
The first twenty seconds of experiencing the Bellingrath website proves the timeworn adage “a picture is worth a thousand words”...
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December 21, 2024
Stratford Hall East Garden | Westmoreland County, Northern Neck of Virginia
Like Middleton Place (see November 30, 2024 post), the original Stratford Hall East Garden dates to the mid-1700s. Though limited...
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December 13, 2024
Hills and Dales Estate | LaGrange, Georgia
Georgia’s Hills and Dales Estate presents the unusual situation of a house site determined by an existing garden instead of...
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December 6, 2024
Ashland | Lexington, Kentucky
Deemed “the Great Compromiser,” Henry Clay stands high in the pantheon of prominent Antebellum American political leaders. In 2017, Society...
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