Author Archives: Olivia Garrett

The Enchantment of Chinese Lantern Festivals: A Timeless Tradition Coming to the Gulf Coast

For centuries, lantern festivals have illuminated the night, captivating audiences with their intricate designs, vibrant colors, and deep cultural significance. Originating in China over 2,000 years ago, these festivals symbolize hope, renewal, and the celebration of light over darkness. Today, the magic of lantern festivals has spread across the world, and Bellingrath Gardens & Home is bringing this breathtaking tradition to the Gulf Coast with the first-ever Gulf Coast Chinese Lantern Festival.

The History of Lantern Festivals

The origins of the Chinese lantern festival date back to the Han Dynasty when people lit lanterns to honor Buddha. Over time, the festival evolved into a grand celebration marking the end of the Lunar New Year festivities. Traditionally held on the 15th day of the first lunar month, lantern festivals feature glowing displays, dragon dances, and riddles written on lanterns. These festivals celebrate family, prosperity, and good fortune, making them one of the most anticipated events in Chinese culture.

As global interest in cultural celebrations has grown, lantern festivals have made their way to the United States, offering immersive experiences that blend ancient artistry with modern innovation. These festivals not only showcase the craftsmanship of Chinese artisans but also promote cross-cultural appreciation.

The Gulf Coast’s Inaugural Chinese Lantern Festival

From April 17 – June 15, 2025, Bellingrath Gardens & Home will host the Gulf Coast Chinese Lantern Festival, an awe-inspiring event produced in partnership with Tianyu Arts & Culture, Inc. Known as the largest Chinese lantern festival producer in North America, Tianyu specializes in creating larger-than-life illuminated displays that transform outdoor spaces into glowing wonderlands.

Visitors will have the opportunity to walk through a stunning collection of handcrafted lanterns, each designed to reflect traditional and modern themes. Expect to see majestic dragons, glowing lotus flowers, and endangered wildlife representations, all brought to life with intricate silk work and LED lights.

Why You Can’t Miss This Spectacular Event

  1. A One-of-a-Kind Experience – This is the first lantern festival of its kind on the Gulf Coast, making it a must-see event for families, art lovers, and cultural enthusiasts.
  2. Instagram-Worthy Displays – The larger-than-life lanterns offer stunning backdrops for photos and unforgettable memories.
  3. Fun for All Ages – With hands-on activities, interactive displays, and games, the Festival offers something for everyone.
  4. A Celebration of Art and Culture – This event is more than just a light display; it’s a chance to experience the rich traditions of Chinese heritage right here in Alabama.
  5. A Day and Night Experience – Whether you visit during the day or at night, the Festival offers something unique. Daytime visits allow guests to see the intricate details of the lanterns up close at regular garden admission rates, while the nighttime experience transforms the gardens into an illuminated wonderland.
  6. Limited-Time Event – The Festival runs for just nine weeks, so don’t miss your chance to witness this unforgettable spectacle.

Plan Your Visit

The Gulf Coast Chinese Lantern Festival will take place Thursday – Sunday nights from April 17 – June 15, 2025, with special openings on Easter and Memorial Day. Tickets will be available online, and guests are encouraged to book in advance as demand is expected to be high.

Join us at Bellingrath Gardens & Home as we bring the beauty and wonder of this ancient tradition to the Gulf Coast. Whether you’re visiting with family, friends, or as a solo adventurer, this Festival promises to be an illuminating experience you won’t forget.

For ticket information and event details, visit Bellingrath.org or follow us on social media for updates!

 

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Asian American Gardening

Everyone here at Bellingrath Gardens and Home is excited for the Gulf Coast Chinese Lantern Festival coming in April—and I mean everyone! And while the place is buzzing in anticipation, I can’t help but think about great plants for our south Alabama gardens that originally came from Asia.

Since I was an intern at Longwood Gardens in 2006, I’ve been enamored by tales of plant explorers venturing into the botanically rich wilds across our planet. Sometimes those explorers delved into uncharted lands, blazing trails to make first contact with flora no one had ever seen. And thanks to ongoing plant exploration by all the Horticultural Indiana Jones’s in the world, thousands upon thousands of aesthetically pleasing or ethnobotanically significant species are documented and shared, saved from extinction, and otherwise put to good use—benefiting people and their gardens.

Of course, not every plant that is collected is “wild collected.” Many great plants that are ubiquitous to southern gardens were first selected and cultivated oceans away, and later imported into America. I recently had a great conversation with our Executive Director, Dr. Todd Lasseigne, who explained to me how the majority of southern garden staple plants originated as cultivated material already cherished in Asia’s ancient gardens. I’ll do my best to pass along what Todd shared with me.

In 1843, Robert Fortune was commissioned by the Royal Horticulture Society to visit the many gardens and nurseries SE China. Three years later, and likely maxing out the company credit card, Robert returned to England with a huge shopping cart of plants. Can you even imagine!? Two well known plants common to the SE United States that resulted from this epic spree are the Chinese snowball bush (Viburnum macrocephalum ‘Sterile’) and a great selection of spirea (Spriaea cantoniensis ‘Lanceata’). These two plants are very different than what would have been found in nature; and they were rooted into the soil of Chinese gardens long before they touched western soil.

In 1917-1918, as the final chapters of World War I were being written in Europe, Ernest Wilson, the assistant Director of the Arnold Arboretum, traveled to Japan, Korea, Taiwan… and then back to Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. If I was in Ernest’s shoes, I’d be going back for seconds too! In addition to being the first westerner to botanize many of east Asia’s most beautiful places, he brought back some of east Asia’s most beautiful cultivated plants… the “Wilson 50”—fifty different Kurume Azalea varieties, including the seemingly omnipresent clones ‘Coral Bells’ and ‘Hino Crimson.’

Many other plant “explorers” marveled at Asia’s advanced horticultural plant palette. Dr. Lasseigne pointed out several more plants that these Horticultural pioneers brought back across the pond in the past two centuries. I can’t imagine Bellingrath Gardens (or any other classic southern garden) without several of these iconic plants developed in Asia—can you?

·         Camellias (Camellia)

·         All evergreen azaleas (Rhododendron)

·         Gardenias (Gardenia)

·         Cast Iron Plant (Aspidistra)

·         Indian Hawthorn (Rhaphiolepis hybrids)

·         Japanese boxwood (Buxus microphylla var. japonica)

·         Pittosporum (Pittosporum tobira)

·         Most non-native evergreen hollies (Ilex spp.)

·         Loquat (Eriobotrya japonica)

·         Most “flowering” cherries (Prunus spp.)

·         “French” hydrangeas (Hydrangea macrophylla)

·         Cryptomeria (Cryptomeria japonica)

·         And TONS more!!!

Plants collected from Asia, especially Japan and China, were often cultivated selections that had already been adorning gardens in Asia for generations before they made it into gardens in the southern United States. So the next time you are tending to your southern garden, turn over a leaf on your Chinese snowball bush and see if it says “made in China.” Don’t see it? That’s ok. What’s important is that Horticulture connects us with one another through time, across our many diverse cultures, and despite our geopolitical boundaries.  When you join this spring and summer to experience the Gulf Coast Chinese Lantern Festival at Bellingrath Gardens, just look around… odds are, you’ll see the lanterns illuminate some of the exact same plants that the people of Asia have loved for centuries!

     

 

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Lighting the Way

In just over a month, as of this writing, Bellingrath Gardens & Home will host the inauguration of what we feel will become a new tradition for Mobile-area and Gulf Coast residents – The Gulf Coast Chinese Lantern Festival. Partnering with Tianyu Arts and Culture, we are extremely excited and honored by the opportunity to bring this special event to Bellingrath!

If you haven’t heard of a Chinese lantern festival, don’t feel like you are alone.  Although this tradition goes back 1,000 to 2,000 years in China, its presence in the U.S. is relatively new. Spokane, Washington was the first U.S. city to host a festival of this sort, with this milestone occurring only as recently as 2015. Since then, Chinese lantern festivals have been held in around 20 U.S. cities. With 2025, Mobile, Alabama joins this select list of celebrated locations for hosting this event.  Our partner, Tianyu, is the acknowledged leader in developing and organizing these shows, and as such, Bellingrath is in good hands.

Some people think of “sky lanterns” when they think of festivals such as this, while others think of lanterns that float on water. The Gulf Coast Chinese Lantern Festival is neither of these, instead being a showcase of larger-than-life wire-frame structures that are covered in brightly painted fabrics, these structures then lit from within and glowing at night. Moreover, the structures are huge. The dragon that will be on display, for instance, will be 200 feet long and around 12 feet tall!

Where in China do these lantern festivals originate? Well, that’s a more complicated question than you might think, but in today’s world, an epicenter of lantern festivals in China occurs in the city of Zigong, a city of around 2.5 million people located in southeastern Sichuan Province. (By Chinese standards, this is a small city, too.) Sichuan, or Szechuan as it was formerly spelled, Province is known for its spicy cuisine and for being the home of the panda preserve and conservation research efforts. Sichuan Province, by area, is about 15% larger than California.

Bellingrath Gardens & Home has led the way with evening special events. For almost 30 years, we have held Magic Christmas in Lights, but also as far back as 1932, Mr. Bellingrath was experimenting with special lighting to illuminate the gardens’ trees that were festooned with Spanish moss. In this regard, the Gulf Coast Chinese Lantern Festival is a natural progression of us holding evening events. As with Magic Christmas, we feel that you, our supporters and guests, will be thrilled by the luminescence that these lanterns will bring, and we truly do believe that you will see Bellingrath in a new light. Tickets are on sale now at Bellingrath.org, and a special preview party has been set for April 12. Come one, and come all!

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From Lighting Spanish Moss to Chinese Lanterns

After three decades of lighting the Gardens for Magic Christmas in Lights, it is interesting to look back at the days when Walter and Bessie Bellingrath entertained friends and family for overnight house parties. As it turns out, the property actually had lighting for evening events, at least around the Lodge.

In the April 17, 1932 edition of the Montgomery Advertiser, a reporter had this to say about his stay with the Bellingrath’s:

On a moonlit night the ripple of lake and river along with the soft light filtering through strands of Spanish moss creates an effect both weird and charming. To introduce a similar entertainment for his guests when the night is dark, Mr. Bellingrath has installed electric lights concealed at points of vantage in the trees. When these green and white lights are turned on, the Spanish moss assumes the appearance of stalactite and the archways of the oaks resemble the walls of some great cave.

Howard Barney in his book, “Mr. Bell” described other lights around the Lodge. Mrs. Bellingrath often hosted weekend house parties for her teenage nieces and nephews and their school friends. There was always a chaperone present during the planned activities, but after dark, to make certain there was no hanky-panky going on, Bessie Bellingrath saw to it that the woods around the Lodge were well-lighted. And when she blinked those lights at 10 o’clock, it was the signal for immediate occupancy by the boys and girls in their very separate sleeping quarters. Two very different sets of lighting in the Gardens for two very different purposes. How surprised and pleased the couple would be to see crowds enjoying their Gardens at night today, whether at Magic Christmas or the Gulf Coast Chinese Lantern Festival.

 

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Gulf Coast Chinese Lantern Festival

Experience the Enchantment of the inaugural Gulf Coast Chinese Lantern Festival at Bellingrath Gardens & Home. From April 17 to June 15, 2025, visitors can immerse themselves in an unforgettable display of art, culture, and illumination. This must-see event will light up the night with spectacular handcrafted lanterns, interactive experiences, and family-friendly entertainment.

The Gulf Coast Chinese Lantern Festival is an extraordinary outdoor event featuring larger-than-life, intricately designed lantern displays. These dazzling works of art are created by the talented artisans of Tianyu Arts & Culture, Inc., the largest producer of Chinese lantern festivals in North America. The festival showcases the beauty of traditional Chinese craftsmanship, combined with modern technology, to create a wonderous nighttime experience for all ages.

Visitors to the festival can expect to walk through glowing gardens filled with stunning, handcrafted lanterns inspired by nature and Chinese folklore. Interactive experiences will allow guests to engage with light-up installations, step into immersive photo opportunities, and learn about the artistry behind the lanterns. This festival is a one-of-a-kind family experience, perfect for all ages, offering a unique way to explore the beauty of Bellingrath Gardens after dark.

The Gulf Coast Chinese Lantern Festival is more than just a visual spectacle—it’s an opportunity to experience a centuries-old tradition in a stunning botanical setting. This limited-time event will only be open Thursday through Sunday nights, plus Easter and Memorial Day, from 5 PM to 10 PM.

The event runs from April 17 to June 15, 2025, at Bellingrath Gardens & Home in Theodore, AL. We are encouraging guests to purchase tickets online in advance. Limited on-site ticket sales will be available, but an additional $8 per ticket charge will apply for purchases at the door. Flex tickets, valid for any show night, can be purchased for an extra $10 per ticket fee. Children 4 and under will be charged $2.

 

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