“I had, of course, long heard of your wonderful Azaleas—but I was completely overwhelmed by the magnificence and the sweep of Bellingrath Gardens. As it happens, I have studied landscape architecture and have had the privilege of visiting many of the most beautiful gardens in the world, in America, on the Continent, down in Italy, and in such remote places as Kashmir and Japan, but these gardens of Mobile rank with the very finest anywhere.”
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In a feature article appearing in Better Homes and Gardens Elmer T. Peterson had this to say:
“Bellingrath Gardens are authoritatively listed near the top among the most beautiful gardens in the United States, and when you have seen them you will not doubt.”
A Garden Pageant in Four Acts
Like a pageant in four acts, each with a climax—that is the description of the “Charm Spot of the Deep South” known all over the world as Bellingrath Gardens of Mobile, Alabama. Here in these world-famed Gardens the show goes on throughout the year, with each season putting on a new act, and bringing forth a new spectacle—a continual parade of changing colors to enchant the visitor every month of the year.
Formerly a semitropical jungle, Bellingrath Gardens are now a perfumed theatre, the air sweet from the mingled odors of growing plants and flowers. A symphony of fragrance! That’s the orchestra to this flowering performance in this sixty-acre garden, the owners of which were Mr. and the late Mrs. Walter D. Bellingrath. Theirs was a magician’s art, and from a wild, untamed land of magnolias, moss-draped live and water oaks, bays and pines, they have wrought a spectacular scene of color. Every twenty feet in Bellingrath Gardens is a vista, some special picture, a never-to-be-forgotten view. There are murmuring fountains and singing cascades and flagstone paths that breathe romance. It is indeed a paradise for nature lovers, a rare and lovely garden that justifies a thousand-mile journey, and each year thousands come from afar and view this marvelous spectacle.
ACT I.
There’s a beauty that beggars description. That is the beauty one finds in Bellingrath Gardens. The first act of the Bellingrath Gardens Show opens in October, when the wondrous Camellias begin to bloom. The Camellia Japonica has no equal in the plant world for its beauty and fitness for the glorification of the home and garden. A native of Japan, it was introduced through European channels to Mobile about one hundred years ago. Possibly some five or six hundred varieties exist, embracing many types and colors. Pure white through every shade of pink to deep red and crimson, ending with some blooms having a decided purplish cast, no other flowering plant can give such a diversity of types, a range baffling description. Singles, semidoubles, peony flowering types, some with dense pompon centers, other shaggy flowers with center petals whirled and twisted, full doubles of every conceivable type. Again some varieties are solid colors, others have variegation through the petals; some are mottled; others are striped and others have petals of various colors throughout the flowers. The varieties of Camellia Japonica having a tendency to show variegation are a never-ending source of expectation and admiration. The charm and amazing variety of the Camellia Japonica found in Bellingrath Gardens quickly convince the visitor that here is one of the most remarkable collections of this beautiful flowering shrub ever gathered together. Small wonder that Act I is an invariable success.