Magnolia Plantation Gardens
by Priscilla Burgers
Title
Magnolia Plantation Gardens
Artist
Priscilla Burgers
Medium
Photograph - Photography - Digital Art
Description
Image is a digital painting of Magnolia Plantation Gardens near Charleston, South Carolina. A gazebo, palm and cypress trees, Spanish moss, and flowering azaleas are beautifully reflected in the still waters of a pond.
Thomas Drayton and his wife Ann arrived from Barbados to the new English colony of Charles Towne and established Magnolia Plantation along the Ashley River in 1679. They were the first in a direct line of Magnolia family ownership that has lasted more than 300 years and continues today.
Magnolia Plantation saw immense wealth and growth through the cultivation of rice during the Colonial era. Later, British and American troops occupied its grounds during the American Revolution, while the Drayton sons became both statesmen and soldiers fighting against British rule.
The establishment of the early gardens at Magnolia Plantation in the late 17th century saw an explosion of beauty and expansion throughout the 18th century, but it was not until the early 19th century that the gardens at Magnolia began to expand on a grand scale.
Upon his death in 1825, Thomas Drayton, the great grandson of Magnolias first Drayton, willed the estate successively to his daughters sons, Thomas and John GrimkAs he had no male heirs to leave it to, he made the condition in the will that they assume their mothers maiden name of Drayton. While in England preparing for the ministry, young John Grimkrayton received word that his older brother Thomas had died on the steps of the plantation house of a gunshot wound received while riding down the oak avenue during a deer hunt. Thus, having expected to inherit little as a second son, young John found himself a wealthy plantation owner at the age of 22.
Despite the prestige and wealth associated with ownership of Magnolia and other plantations, he still resolved to pursue his ministerial career; and in 1838 he entered the Episcopal seminary in New York. While there, he fell in love with and married Julia Ewing, daughter of a prominent Philadelphia attorney. Returning to Charleston with his bride, he strove to complete his clerical studies while bearing the burden of managing his large estate. The pressure took its toll and his fatigue resulted in tuberculosis. His own treatment for the illness was working outside in the gardens he loved. He also wanted to create a series of romantic gardens for his wife to make her feel more at home in the South Carolina Lowcountry. A few years later, his health returned, allowing him to enter the ministry as rector of nearby Saint Andrews Church, which had served plantation owners since 1706 and still stands just two miles down the highway towards Charleston. Until his death a half-century later, Rev. Drayton continued to devote himself to both his ministry and to the enhancement of the plantation garden, wanting to create an earthly paradise in which his wife might forget Philadelphia and her desire to return there.
Consistent with the changes he had seen taking place in English gardening away from the very formal design earlier borrowed from the French, John Grimkrayton moved towards greater emphasis on the soft natural beauty of the site. More than anyone else he can be credited with the internationally acclaimed informal beauty of the garden today. He introduced the first azaleas to America, and he was among the first to use camellias in an outdoor setting. Much of Magnolias horticultural fame today is based on the large and varied collection of of these two speciesnot the abundant Southern Magnolia for which the plantation just happened to have been named.
The outbreak of the Civil War threatened the welfare of the family, the house, and the gardens themselves. But the plantation recovered from the war to see additional growth of the gardens as they became the focus of the plantation over agriculture when the gardens opened to the public for the first time in 1870 and saved the plantation from ruin. Since that time, the plantation and gardens have evolved and grown into one of the greatest public gardens in America with a rich history.
Featured Photo
Nature and Landscape Group-8/27/2013
Uploaded
August 14th, 2013
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Viewed 316 Times - Last Visitor from Rochester, MN on 04/22/2024 at 10:22 PM
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