Category Archives: Bellingrath Blog

Gulf Coast Chinese Lantern Festival Round 2

Hello, everyone! I hope that you are enjoying your summer break now that school is out. Here at Bellingrath, we’re happy to have our second year of the Gulf Coast Chinese Lantern Festival finished. Phew! It’s been a good run, but as I’m sure so many of you also feel, the days and weeks and months just seem to pass ever faster and faster, eh?

So, you ask, how did we do this year? Was the event successful? Are we going to do it again in 2027? To these questions, I can say “pretty good” and “yes” and yes!” Our attendance numbers for 2026, compared with the inaugural 2025 year, were down, but we feel that economic and cost-of-living issues are pinching people’s wallets and budget – and we at BGH understand this, too. Despite, however, us having fewer attendees, the reviews (both online and on-site) were nothing short of amazing and praiseworthy for this year’s show. Our partner, Tianyu Arts & Culture, put together an entirely new show for this year, and to my great excitement, they created several signature set pieces based on concepts that I had given them back in 2025 (for which there wasn’t enough time to realize). Thus, we had flowering dogwoods, pitcher plants (complete with bats bobbing in and out of the pitchers, lol), native azaleas, and also our familiar Formosan azaleas. These set pieces were crafted specifically for the Bellingrath show, and we couldn’t be more pleased! We hope you noticed these “local flora” nods when you visited.

Although our attentions are now starting to turn to this year’s Magic Christmas in Lights, we will soon (by late summer) be working on next year’s Gulf Coast Chinese Lantern Festival, believe it or not. If you have any thoughts on specific new set pieces that you would like to see next year, please send us your ideas. You never know what we’ll decide to adopt!

The reasoning behind us hosting a second light show at BGH – with Magic Christmas being the first one, of course – were two-fold: to provide more opportunities for you, our visitors and supporters, to experience our Charmed Spot of the Deep South at a different time of the year, and also to provide crucial operating support that allows us to fulfill our mission and keep the doors open. Public gardens are resource intensive organizations to operate, and given today’s visitor expectations, we know that we can never rest on our laurels “waiting” on you all to just show up. As staff will affirm, I often say that we always need to give visitors at least two reasons to come to BGH. Although I feel that the gardens and home are reason enough, I also know from my career experiences and from my colleagues’ perspectives that our own splendid campus isn’t enough. We need to give you another reason to come – something so compelling that you just can’t wait to see what we have offer. Both Magic Christmas in Lights and the Gulf Coast Chinese Lantern Festival offer this “second reason” level of attractiveness and attention.

In our view, Bellingrath remains as vital today as it was in Mr. Bellingrath’s time, for the societal and spiritual benefits that it brings forth. Public gardens and historic estates aren’t just “pretty places,” ya’ll. They are essential components of the social fabric and regional identity of the communities in which they are located. Although we can never rest fully on past successes, we can celebrate them while also looking forward to the next set of reasons that we are giving you to continue supporting us. Thank you for all you do for Bellingrath Gardens & Home. We cannot exist without you!

 

Four Campaigns for Our Future

Since we relaunched the Friends of Bellingrath newsletter with a new look in the fall of 2024, each issue has featured a different fundraising campaign. We’ve used an integrated digital fundraising approach, inviting gifts through the newsletter, emails, Facebook posts, donation stations in the Gardens, and prompts at the time of ticket purchase.

We’re grateful for the progress these contributions have fueled in the Gardens. Here’s a quick recap of eighteen months of investment by Friends of Bellingrath and other supporters.

Pathway to World Class Camellias and Azaleas (Fall 2024)

This campaign provided funding to add 750 varieties of azaleas and 500 varieties of camellias to our newly designated core collections (joining our tree canopy and native plants). It also covered the cost of creating a database of our collection. As a result of this work, we’ve become more active in the American Azalea Society and the American Camellia Society. The American Camellia Society recently named Bellingrath the legacy lead for preserving and protecting the Back Acres hybrid group, which our team collected from Pass Christian, Mississippi. The American Camellia Society named Bellingrath a pre-conference site for the 2027 International Camellia Congress.

Summer House Renovation (Spring 2025)

Major gifts from the Hearin-Chandler Foundation, the A.S. Mitchell Foundation, and the Estate of Stephen Crawford covered the majority of the renovation expenses, but our spring campaign in 2025 aimed to cover the remaining costs. The new copper roof and open ceiling bring an air of quiet elegance. Repairs will be completed over the summer, and we expect a dedication this fall.

Head House Renovation (Fall 2025)

Our fall 2025 campaign raised money to repair the insulation in the Head House, the main office in our Greenhouse complex. We’ve begun work on the insulation project and other winterization in the current greenhouse complex. With foundation support through our Laying the Groundwork for the Centennial Master Plan campaign, we’re beginning design in July on a new greenhouse and maintenance complex that will meet our needs into the next century.

River Pavilion Restoration (Spring 2025)

Our current campaign is raising money to fix the River Pavilion, our front porch on the Fowl River. The river has been important throughout Bellingrath’s history. As part of our Centennial Master Plan, we will be placing increased attention on the waterfront, including along North Bayou. Our STEM program has already installed a real-time water monitoring station on the pavilion to record changing conditions in the tidal river. We’ve reached half of our $25,000 goal. As we’ve worked, we’ve recognized a need to make minor repairs now and plan for a redesign that will meet our needs into the next century.

 

A Special Anniversary

On July 4, 1936, Walter Bellingrath noted in his guest register that on that day they had their first meal inside their new home. Ninety years later we celebrate that event and look back at the construction of his home. 

Architect George B. Rogers selected a 44 year old contractor named Peyton Higgison to handle the job. Higgison had been born in Macon, Ga. but was in Mobile by 1924 when he married Annie McCann. Miss McCann was Choir Director for Dauphin Way Methodist Church of which her father served as pastor. In the mid-1950’s the current church was built and Peyton Higgison served as the general contractor for that project. 

The year 1924 was also the first year Higgison was listed in the Mobile city directory where he was listed as a general contractor with an office in the old First National Bank Building. The business apparently did not last because he was listed as an estimator for Sundberg Construction by 1928. 

It is not until the 1935 edition that Peyton Higgison is listed again as a general contractor and this would have been the pivotal year when he landed the job at Bellingrath Gardens. 

And it was on July 3, 1935 that the architect ok’d the first payment to Peyton Higgison in the amount of $78.28. Within weeks his crew had grown to a pair of carpenters and 12 laborers. By January of 1936 the payroll included laborers, carpenters, brick masons, plasterers, and painters. 

And the list of materials used is impressive: 231,850 bricks, 380 barrels of cement and 85,772 board feet of lumber. The cast iron railings were purchased for the sum of $1,105.50. Total labor cost:  $14,243.10 or roughly $335,000 today. 

While Mr. Higgison’s contracting business got off to a rocky start, his completion of the Bellingrath Home certainly put him on a successful track. He handled the construction of the new Grand Hotel, the disassembling of Trinity Episcopal Church and its reconstruction on Dauphin Street, followed by St. John’s Episcopal Church (1956) the Greek Orthodox Church built beside the Bellingrath Home on Ann Street (1961) and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Spring Hill (1964). 

In 1975, Forty years after breaking ground on the Bellingrath Home, Mr. Higgison died at the age of 83 following what was termed a lengthy illness. The buildings and churches he constructed remain a monument to this talented man.

Bringing the Bellingrath Home into the Digital Era

            It goes without saying that the Bellingrath Home has one of the most impressive and important collections of antique furniture, silver, and porcelain in the South. Mrs. Bellingrath’s generosity paired with her excellent taste has preserved 19th century decorative arts for generations after her untimely passing.

Though the home was designed, built, and used as a state of the art residence for the Bellingraths; it is now one of the best preserved and most visited house museums on the Gulf Coast. After Mrs. Bellingrath’s passing, Mr. Bellingrath entrusted one of her close friends and antique dealer to make an inventory of her impressive collection in 1943 and then again in 1947. These inventories served as the method for keeping track of large number of artifacts in the home for decades.

The museum’s longtime director, Thomas McGehee, has undertaken a lifetime’s work of properly researching and describing each artifact in the Home. Each artifact was photographed and given an appropriate description. His work has resulted in dozens of binders sorted by the composition of artifacts themselves such as glass, porcelain, metals, wood, etc. This extensive, detailed, and accurate inventory is vital to the continued successful operation of the Bellingrath Home as a museum.

With this in mind, the Bellingrath-Morse Foundation has decided to bring the Home up to the museum standards of the 21st century. The Home has recently begun the long awaited task of digitizing our collection. This is done through a tried and true software known as PastPerfect. PastPerfect was developed nearly thirty years ago and is continually updated to remain the standard for museums. Organizations of all sizes and funding rely on this vital resource to keep their inventories protected from weather extremes, remotely accessible, and easily searchable.

Over this past winter and spring, I have begun to rephotograph every artifact in the Home with a high resolution digital camera and enter the detailed descriptions provided by Mr. McGehee into the PastPerfect program. The digital files on each object are then appropriately catalogued, tagged, filed, and indexed to library and archival standards. Once the project is done, researchers and museum professionals can reference portions of the Bellingrath collection with ease.

This ongoing project helps to update and preserve the Home’s inventory for the benefit of future generations of visitors, employees, board members, and house museums throughout the nation. It is both a pleasure and an honor to undertake this mission.

 

Momentum to the Eighth Power

Hot off the heels of talking about two projects in my e-newsletter column last month, I now want to update you on a plethora of other projects that have been ongoing at Bellingrath Gardens & Home.  Honestly y’all, it sometimes takes a scorecard for me to keep up with everything! Although it’s not quite the ten frames from a bowling scorecard, we think you’ll be impressed.

Project 1 – Permanent Lighting for the Overflow Parking Lot – As part of our “Laying the Groundwork for the Centennial Master Plan” fundraising campaign, Cory Sparks and I worked hard to secure $235,000, and counting, in funding for this year alone! One of the first projects let from this initiative was for McCollum Electric (Mobile, AL) to install buried electrical conductors running to, and then among, six light poles installed at the perimeter of the overflow parking lot (adjacent to the Greenhouse Complex), and then to affix new LED light fixtures purchased last year to these poles. This work will eliminate BGH’s need to rent diesel-powered portable light towers during seasonal events such as Magic Christmas in Lights. I am happy to report that this project is almost complete, as of this May 31 writing. We thank the Crampton Trust for a major $75,000 gift recently given to the “Laying the Groundwork” campaign and also our other funders: The J.L. Bedsole Foundation, A.S. Mitchell Foundation, Dr. Monte L. Moorer Foundation, Laidlaw Foundation, and Julien E. Marx Foundation.

Project 2 – Revitalized Arbors – Visitors regularly enjoy walking around Mirror Lake at BGH, and we often see them appreciating the swings on the North Arbor and West Arbor, and also the ones on the Brick Patio. As with wooden members that we had to replace on the Bayou Boardwalk last year, these Arbors also required significant repairs. BGH’s own Maintenance Department, superbly led by Harold Fischer, has addressed these concerns and topped them off with nice paint jobs using our Urbane Bronze color as a finish. Thanks, Harold, Mitchell, Dubby, and Becca!

Project 3 – Archaeological Dig Redux (Round 2026) – Way back in 2000, the University of South Alabama’s Center for Archaeological Studies, then led by Dr. Gregory Waselkov, conducted several digs at BGH to identify and locate the 1760s era “Lisloy Plantation” site. That work resulted in significant finds of artifacts, but, alas, no follow-up studies were done.  We decided to re-engage the Center, now under Dr. Philip Carr’s leadership, and in May hosted USA Archaeology students for follow-up digs in several areas. More artifacts were found, and a report will be generated in the coming months. We are so thrilled and honored to have a continuation of this important research on the BGH campus.  We thank the Alabama Humanities Alliance for providing funding in support of this project, too. Stay tuned for more when Professor Carr presents a preliminary report on Monday, June 22nd, at 10 a.m. in the Magnolia Room.

Project 4 – Headhouse Insulation Progress – Over the past winter and early spring months, we crowd-funded a $25,000 project to replace the insulation at BGH’s Headhouse building (the metal-frame, mid-1980s structure that serves as the working space for our Greenhouse staff). Thanks to you – and with no small amount of “enticement” from our irresistible “greenhouse sales kitty,” Kiwi, we were able to reach this goal! Energy Control Insulation (Theodore, AL) recently completed the first phase of this project – the removal and disposal of the old insulation. We are now working in an interim period with E. Cornell Malone Corp. (Mobile, AL) on some follow-up needs on the roof seal work they performed last year as well as sealing work needed on the exterior walls. We feel that by mid-summer, we will have the new insulation installed by Energy Control Insulation, bringing this much-needed building improvements project to a close!

Project 5 – New Greenhouse Fans – Thanks to the successful award of a $21,000, nationally-competitive grant from a California-based charitable foundation, BGH has been able to embark on a “critical-need” project – the replacement of all of the exhaust and circulating fans for all of our greenhouses. This $21,000 grant, awarded in December, allowed us to purchase enough exhaust fans to completely modernize our two largest greenhouses with industrial-grade, top-line fans and to install premium-quality circulating fans in all of the greenhouses. Although many more exhaust fans need to be replaced, we can now say that we have achieved serious momentum on this crucial need of maximizing functionality of our aging and deteriorated Greenhouse Complex facilities.

Project 6 – Electrical Infrastructure Engineering – Bellingrath’s electrical infrastructure is old.  Four years ago, we celebrated the reconstruction of new, buried power mains leading to our property, a major leap forward for us. Until this year’s success with our “Laying the Groundwork for the Centennial Master Plan” capital campaign, however, we did not have the budgetary means to address the electrical infrastructure that we own – the lines, panels, subpanels, etc. from the Alabama Power transformers “inward” onto the BGH campus. Thanks both to the technical expertise of Hargrove Engineers and Constructors and their generous support as Business Circle members, however, we can now say that we are literally days away from having a brand new, site-wide electrical engineering plan for Bellingrath Gardens & Home! You will be hearing LOTS about this plan in the coming months, as we soon shift gears to rebuild our electrical infrastructure, replacing outdated, inadequate infrastructure while also expanding our grid to accommodate our continuing growth and future development per the Centennial Master Plan. The days of cables hanging from trees and breaker panels fastened to our live oaks will soon be over, and we cannot be more thankful. Harold Fischer, BGH’s Maintenance Manager, and I have worked hand-in-hand with Hargrove’s Brian Penn, P.E. and Jake Lake, P.E. to produce a new vision for electrical infrastructure at Bellingrath Gardens & Home.

Project 7 – Summer House Painting – With the recent installation of the copper louvers on the new cupola on the Summer House, the only task remaining to officially close out this project is to get all of the painting work completed, a complex and not insignificant task, I might add. Fortunately, our Maintenance Department is hard at work on this, and over the next several weeks, you will see a renewed focus on this project now that other priority projects have been completed. We think you’ll also like the new color scheme that has been developed for the restoration of this historic structure.  (Anyone up for some Haint Blue ceilings?!) From primer coats to paint with carpenter bee deterrents added in, we are taking this project very seriously so that this restoration lasts for another 50 years! Come and watch final bits of the project be completed over the next several weeks. (This project, as you may recall, was funded through several significant grants from local foundations, plus a crowd-funding campaign, and even a special bequest from a former Board Chair’s estate. We are planning a fall ribbon-cutting ceremony, which will be announced soon!)

Project 8 – Magnolia Room New Doors – Last but not least is a project that has also progressed since last year – the Phase 1 Renovation of the Magnolia Room. The final aspect of the project was to add in a set of custom doors – the fabrication of which became yet another test of patience on BGH’s part. With the doors now installed and hardware affixed, the only tasks remaining include painting and then installation of the closing and latching mechanisms. Due to the time required for fabrication and the above subsequent tasks, it’s probably a nice thing that Olivia Garrett, BGH’s crackerjack Marketing and PR Manager, decided to place our “step and repeat” banner in front of the unfinished doors back in January! To our pleasant surprise, the banner almost instantaneously transformed the “doors” into one of BGH’s most popular selfie stations, LOL. In the coming weeks, you’ll see painting commence and the remaining hardware installs completed, such that we will at last have finished up Phase 1 of the Magnolia Room. What about Phase 2, you ask?! Well, to that, we’ll have to ask you to stay tuned for more good things and more future projects to come.

And so, with all of these words, you now know about eight projects. That these eight projects represent only a portion of everything that is happening at BGH means that not only are there future tales to tell, but also that we have tremendously exciting things continuing to occur at Bellingrath. For this all to happen, we can only thank you, our members, supporters, and patrons. Thanks to you, we are enjoying historic investments in Bellingrath Gardens & Home, investments that will pay dividends in the years to come as we approach and then cross over into our second century as the Gulf Coast’s leading historic public garden.

Todd

 

Fixing Our Front Porch on the Fowl River

As summer approaches, Bellingrath is turning its attention to the Fowl River. Every fisherman who passes by reminds us of Mr. Bell and Mr. Frank, and the waterskiers are following in the wake of Mr. Johnny “On the Spot” Dickinson and many of the Bellingrath friends and family. But not Mr. Bell and Ms. Bessie.

The River Pavilion is Bellingrath’s front porch on the Fowl River. It needs to be refreshed to match the ongoing work in the Gardens and reflect our drive to be a great coastal garden of the world. So far, we’ve hit 38% of our $25,000 goal.

Your gift will not only beautify the space but make it safer for visitors, particularly children coming to see the real time water monitoring station that shows changing conditions on the tidal river. Our STEM education program is already using the station to teach lessons that connect classroom science to the beauty of the Alabama outdoors.

Give now to fix our front porch on the Fowl River!

Our French Connection

The Bellingraths were very aware that the land holding their fishing camp, and later garden estate, had a long history stretching back to French colonial days. When Walter Bellingrath purchased the original two cabins, a group of Mobilians had been enjoying them as the Lisloy Club, named for the French plantation which once occupied the property in the 1760’s.

It is unclear if the Bellingraths knew much about the owner of that plantation and it was not until the Spring of 2002 that a group of archaeologists from the University of South Alabama began a dig which turned up clues and confirmed its existence.

Research conducted at that time identified the original owner as Henri Montault de Monberaut,de Saint-Civier (1718-1786) a French nobleman and important military officer. He had previously commanded Fort Toulouse which stood at the junction of the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers near present day Wetumpka. Established in 1717, this was the easternmost outpost of French territory and served as an important trading center.

Having mastered several languages, Henri also learned a great deal about the cultural practices of the Creek Indians. This led to his reputation as an expert negotiator.

A Move to Mobile

Henri had moved to the Mobile area by 1759 and he and his family occupied a house in town before establishing a plantation on the bluff overlooking the Fowl River. He called his plantation Lisloy and the property eventually held a manor house, well-filled barns, stables, a dairy and a good garden enclosed by rail fences.

The swampy lands surrounding this proved unsuitable for farming so the land was used for cattle farming and a tar works. In 1762 Henri had resigned from the army and the following years his diary indicated his property held 500 cattle, 50 horses, flocks of sheep and pigs. That was also the year which ended the French rule of this area when the Louisiana territory was ceded to Great Britain and Spain.

While many French residents moved west, Henri stayed behind and was named Deputy Superintendent of Indian Affairs in what became British West Florida. His expertise led to treaties creating boundaries with the Choctaws and Creeks. Ultimately Henri’s relationship with the British deteriorated and in 1769 he and his family returned to France. Louis XVI granted him a pension and it is believed that he died in 1786.

After the family’s departure, the once thriving plantation was abandoned. A British map of 1775 shows its location describing it as “deserted.”

2002 Findings

The dig completed in 2002 found colonial era artifacts which could be traced to Henri’s occupancy.  Among the treasures uncovered were:

  • Tin-glazed French faience (earthenware)
  • British creamware (lead-glazed pottery with a creamy color)
  • Green bottle glass
  • Fragments of white clay smoking pipes
  • And most importantly, a brass French military button.

Some of these items have been on display at the USA Archaeology Museum on campus. And now, nearly a quarter of a century later another dig is underway on the site of the Lisloy plantation. It will be interesting to see what is unearthed this time around.

The Archaeology Museum on the University of South Alabama campus has free admission and is open Tuesday-Friday from 10AM to 5PM during the school year and will reopen on Friday, August 14, 2026.

Movement on Two Fronts

Every month, it seems, Bellingrath Gardens & Home is either making a new announcement or starting a new project. For the month of May, there are two items that I am excited to write about:  our boathouse, and also our long-sought-after plant labels. Although neither project is complete, we still feel that both are newsworthy at this stage.

Well, what is actually happening with these two, disparate projects?!  First off, we have officially decided to undertake the process and work of defining all of the needs of our now 20 year-old boathouse, which we have renamed as the River Pavilion. Practically ever since the Bellingraths purchase the Fowl River property in 1918, there has been a boathouse here. Today’s one, constructed after the previous one was destroyed by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, has served its purpose of allowing guests to access the River, while also in the past serving as an embarkation point for the river cruises, but it is showing its age. We are working on plans to replace the wood shingle roof with a metal roof, restore and improve lighting, replace and/or encapsulate the deteriorating pilings, redeck the walking surface, and install new railings to provide enhanced visitor safety. To this end, we have launched a $25,000 fundraising campaign to garner funds to start tackling the process of bringing the River Pavilion back to full functionality, with the goal of stabilizing it for the next 20 years and beyond. We are asking for your consideration in helping us to realize this goal.

Another project that is commonly mentioned in reviews of the gardens is that our plants lack labels. Now, whole master’s theses have been written on this topic, and I can assure you that it is fraught with pitfalls and moments of glory alike. Our take, for starters, at BGH is that we are going to label plants from a prioritized list based both on garden spaces and on our core collections. For instance, you can see a photo in this article of one of our beta-version plant labels of a rose in the Rose Garden, an area that has experimented with plant labels over the decade but that needs a unified approach so that all of the roses are labeled consistently and appropriately for such a grand garden space. We will soon be ordering labels for all of the roses growing here, and so we ask you to stay tuned. After that, we will label 100 of our specimen camellia plants because a) camellias are one of our core collections, and b) we will be hosting the International Camellia Congress next year. What information will you find on our plant labels? Well, we’ll do the standard, basic stuff of giving you a common name, the scientific name, the cultivar name, and some tidbit about the plant’s origin. However, on top of that, we’ll communicate if the plant is patented, who originated it, and from where. At some point down the line, we plan on having this information housed on a mini-database, which visitors will access via QR codes or via our website.

While both of these projects – boathouse and labels – couldn’t be more different, they collectively demonstrate our commitment to excellence in bringing Bellingrath Gardens & Home forward. As the signature public garden of the Gulf Coast Region, we take what we do seriously, and that means that before we unveil something publicly, we vet it and make sure that it will shine appropriately. We think that you, our supporters, will enjoy seeing our plans unfold for the River Pavilion just as much as you’ll learn new things about our plants as we begin labeling them.

Thank you for continuing patronage of BGH.

Todd

The Boat Houses of Bellingrath

Walter Bellingrath first visited the Fowl River to fish. That led to his eventual purchase of the former Lisloy Club in 1918 and its conversion to Belle Camp.

The earliest photo of his camp was taken from the water and shows his fishing guide, Frank Woodard, standing on a dock, no boat house in sight. However photos in the Bellingrath Archives indicates that there was a small one located further to the south.

By the mid-twenties as the camp evolved, the modest wharf was replaced by a grand boat house to store Mr. Bellingrath’s growing numbers of skiffs, sailboats and a cabin cruiser he christened “The Bessie Belle.” Period images show that the structure had a sun deck sturdy enough to hold one of our large cast iron benches which match those in Mobile’s Bienville Square. The access to this deck was via a bridge walkway attached to an area where the East Terrace is today.

The lower level was a shady paradise with a glider, chairs and a swing to enjoy the views and breezes of the Fowl River. A ladder descended into the water for the convenience of swimmers. The western end of the building had four changing rooms which family members recall had no lights except from a transom.

Once the Bellingrath Home was built the bridge access was removed and replaced by a wooden staircase with landings to make the climb more present. It was during this time period that nieces and nephews of the Bellingraths were able to invite their classmates down for swimming and boating.

One of those classmates recalled that Mrs. Bellingrath always insisted that her maiden sister Emmie Morse serve as a chaperone. When her nephew, H.C. Robertson was asked by his date to rub sun tan lotion on her back Miss Morse sailed over the crowd crying “No touching, no touching, here, I will do that!”

The boat house survived well past Mr. Bellingrath’s death in 1955 and that upper deck was enjoyed by countless tourists over the years. However by the late 1970’s borers has severely undermined the pilings supporting the structure and since there were no longer any boats to be sheltered the entire structure was replaced with an open pavilion.

47 Reasons Camellias Bring People Together

Camellias carry with them the stories of their creators, their origin, their caretakers, and the gardens around them. Camellias secure a sort of unrestricted accessibility across a timeline more far reaching than our own mortality affords. Through it all, Camellias bring people together—past, present, and future.

The Camellia was Walter Bellingrath’s favorite flower. The Horticulture department is in the early stages of rebuilding the Camellia Arboretum that was originally inspired by Walter’s passion for Camellias, and built to honor his legacy. We are adding as many varieties as possible—one at a time. We have amassed several hundred varieties so far…with several thousand to go!

Recovering and reestablishing our collection is a top priority for all the reasons above. As these new plants become established, memories begin to resurface. A bloom might offer more than a burst of color or platform that honeybees do their best work. For many of us, a close examination of a flower results in an experience far beyond chromatic. The blossom resurrects memories from long ago—disjunct and out of focus at first, so many images, feelings, sensations—details so minute you’d have to have been there to know what I mean—all of it…ALL of it…somehow and suddenly reassembled, recollected, reanimated on petals of the past.

And while we are standing there in a translucent state, because a part of us is 20, 40, 70 years in the past, a second honeybee enters the picture, and clumsily bumps into the honeybee that was there first. In the still morning mist, the sound of their midair collision is abrupt but gentle…oddly grounding. Neither bee seems to mind. There’s plenty of pollen to go around—and they pupated just six cells apart. So, they just go about their business (buzzness?). In that moment, we feel we are in the midst of a bigger picture. We consider the miraculous metabolic systems upon which the Camellia gathered and configured and transported the nutrients that culminated in that single flower (that’s where my thoughts drift, anyway), the bees checking off boxes on their daily task list (and do bees actually have knees?), the attenuated sounds permeating the calm saturated air (every…single…sound), the flight patterns of individual aerosolized water droplets (water existing in such a dynamic state that it seems to be animated by a single glance), a dead leaf on the ground (wait, which tree did that come from…I don’t remember that tree growing on this side of Mirror Lake), the luxuriant scent of an Osmanthus blooming somewhere (it’s not important where it grows…that’s not the point). Call it the epitome of distraction or the apex of focus—in an instant, the Camellia brings everything around us to within reach of our senses…and within range of our sentience.

And while we are standing there in a translucent state, because our conscious has apparently left our bodies, we marvel at all the Camellias around us…some larger than life relics of the original Camellia Arboretum, and some diminutive plants staring up at us with nursery tags still attached. Can you imagine what these will look like in a few decades!? Glad you asked. Yes, you can! Camellias invite us to predict the future—projecting each years’ growth and flower display. And we can imagine ourselves or our loved ones thriving and blossoming and growing right alongside the plants. We think through time, and the resultant feeling is just as real as standing in the shade of a tree planted way back when. Camellias are timeless. And while we are standing there in a translucent state, we are timeless too, thinking 20, 40, 70 years into to the future.

Time to take this article in for a landing. You may have heard—on February 28th, 47 people gathered in the Camellia Arboretum and picked up shovels—members of the Camellia community alongside the members of Bellingrath Gardens. In front of them were about 100 Camellias in a 12,000 sq’ slice of the Camellia Arboretum. The plants were strategically arranged in a 14’ x 8’ grid. We had previously darkened the soil by adding 150 cubic yards of compost and a coat of matte black paint was still drying on recently glued irrigation risers. The atmosphere was electric as people from 5 to 85 years old had gathered together in anticipation of what was about to happen. And in a matter of minutes it was over. All this talk of Camellias and time…it seemed to happen in an instant, but just like that, the first significant Camellia Arboretum planting in at least 50 years was over in 40 minutes. Planted and mulched…signed, sealed, delivered.

47 people came together 47 years after Hurricane Frederic shuddered the Camellia Arboretum. Some people came because their grandparents loved Camellias. Some people participated because they had the opportunity to plant their favorite plant into their favorite garden. Some people joined us because they were here with their grandparents—and at 5 or 6 years old, one has limited input into their daily schedule. If you weren’t there, I wish you were. There is so much I want to illustrate for you…details so minute you’d have to have been there to know what I mean. But there is one experience upon which I simply must expound: the sound. The sound of 47 shovels simultaneously lancing the ground…neither softer or louder than the voices of those operating them. A shovel making contact with a brick or root, overlapping and barely discernible fragments of reminiscent stories shared of gardening past, a botched plant name read aloud, the light thud of a shovelful of dirt landing next to a 3 gallon pot-sized hole, the same plant name botched for a second time but now cast with an air of confidence, strong opinions from a small murder of crows, something about an Alabama sports team doing sports, a shovel stabbed into the ground to stay upright quickly followed by the sound of a shovel handle hitting the soft ground, laughter, a helicopter going overhead on its way somewhere, someone slapping the side of the pot in an effort to introduce a Camellia to Bellingrath soil for the first time, a bag of pine bark mulch being torn open. To be immersed in the bustle was so satisfying, so deeply nourishing, so timeless…I will never forget those 40 minutes. Camellias will continue bringing people together at Bellingrath Gardens—the legacy of Walter and Bessie retold with the opening of every flower.