We rode our bikes through Huntington Beach, across busy Route 17, to Brookgreen Gardens. Sometimes you plan an excursion and get surprised--that was Brookgreen Gardens. It was 100 times better than we ever imagined. Gardens is a misnomer as it is a garden, but much more. The so called garden is a collection of South Carolina low country flowers, bushes, and trees. They are interspersed with over 900 sculptures by famous American sculptors, and many water fountains and ponds. Along all the paths, there are benches where you sit and enjoy the wonders around you. The area is filled with massive live oak trees with Spanish moss hanging from the branches. These live oaks are over 250 years old.
This land, in the 1800s, was made up of tree separate rice plantations. Once slavery ended, the owners of these plantation went bankrupt, and the land lay fallow; eventually turning into forest, fields, and marsh land. In the mid 1930s the Huntington"s from New York (a very wealthy couple) moved to the area and purchased the 9,000 acres that had made up the three plantations.
They wanted to preserve for future generations and they did this by having the gardens represent the plants and trees common to this area at that time. They set up another large area where you can take a pontoon ride out onto the river to see the remaining rice fields along with today"s alligators and sea life. This area also contains domestic animals common to the 1800s. There is another large area where there are modern habitats for wild animals common to the area at that time.
As we walked through the gardens, I felt like I was for a short time in another world, in another period of time, and with the beauty of this setting, I felt tears well up in my eyes and a knot in my throat when I realized all the lives and all the history that has happened on this land that today is in repose from years gone by and now reflects only the beauty and endurance of time.
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