Brookgreen Gardens Photos – Murrells Inlet, South Carolina

SCIWAY was fortunate to visit to Brookgreen Gardens and Huntington Beach State Park in March 2008. Together, these two properties make up more than 9,000 acres of property once owned by Anna and Archer Huntington. In 1931, the couple established Brookgreen as a living museum for art, animals, and nature. It continues to thrive today.

Brookgreen Gardens is famous for its many exquisite old oaks and beautiful daffodils, which grow profusely all over the gardens in late winter and early spring.

Spanish moss drapes from the oaks’ limbs. The moss is an epiphyte, which means it is a plant that lives on other plants. While it doesn’t cause direct harm to trees, Spanish moss may reduce the oaks’ ability to photosynthesize when it covers an extensive portion of their surface. A tree’s leaves simply have less access to light. Small trees can fail when overburdened by moss, but large trees seem to grow and thrive despite it.

In March, vibrant tulips bloom in a flowerbed outside the Old Kitchen House, one of three restaurants at Brookgreen. The Kitchen Garden also features edible plants like rosemary and parsley. Parsley is often used in gardens to welcome butterflies; caterpillars find the herb most tasty!

The heart of Brookgreen is the 30-acre Archer and Anna Hyatt Huntington Sculpture Garden. With a collection of over 900 works by world-famous artists from near and far, it truly offers something for everyone. The garden is divided into several smaller gardens and terraces. In the Palmetto Garden, pictured below, a rectangular pond is bordered by handsome rows of palmettos, South Carolina’s state tree.

Brookgreen’s 1931 charter established it as “A Society for Southeastern Flora and Fauna,” and today you can observe a variety of animals in the garden’s zoo. In addition to native wildlife, such as river otters and fox squirrels, you can also see domestic animals common to colonial South Carolina, such as Red Devon Milking Cows and Tunis Sheep. The zoo also features several aviaries, a fox glade, a white-tailed deer savannah, and an alligator swamp.