Evening star., 1940-04-21
By Ralph Gray,
Travel Coursellor,
American Automobile Association.

American Automobile Association.
Due to the weather's recent re-
lapse into winter, the gardens at
Charleston, S. c., have been delayed
in reaching their full prime. Latest
advice from the first city Of the
South is that the blooming season
will last from April 8 through the
end of the month. In other words,
1t Is not too late to make these
azalea gardens your first trip of the
1910 travel season..
The Charleston Azalea Festival
itself comes from April % through
April %. Since this formal celebra-
ton is always scheduled toward the
end of the actual period of blossom
ing, it is better to plan to go before
that time In order to see the bios
SONS at their best. The very peak
should be reached about the 18th,
although 1t is always difficult to
forecast exactly anything so vari-
able as an azalea plant.
Even though the South Carolinian
spring was delayed this year, it will
lack none of its usual color and in
tensity. The flowers were not hurt
by the cold. Soon the azaleas and
jessamines and the camellia ja-
ponicas will be in bloom, fairly
shouting to Charleston that spring
has come, and plainly inviting the
rest of the world to see.
These gardens of Charleston,
spotted along the mysterious shores
Of nearby rivers and bayous, fur
nish Southern springcoming the
perfect setting it deserves. The
freshly awakened plants bloom with
such fierce intensity that one thinks
surely they are the tardy Towering
of the buried gold of pirates who
knew these waters two and one-half
centuries ago. And truly the red
gold of a blooming azalea bush Is a
greater lure to the present-day
traveller than any amount of hypo-
thetical pirates gold.
Here In our northerly cline, where
aZaleas are seen only as a small
border decoration in flower beds, it
is hard to believe what a Charleston
azalea bush can be-20 or even 80
feet high, a solid wall of red when
in bloom and the blooms so thick
that not a single green leaf may be
seen. Were it not for their extreme
beauty, upon first sight your main
reaction would be pure amazement.
Poinsettias, giant 10-foot bushes
bristling with red-pointed blooms,
also flower so heavily that the limbs
cannot be seen. Rare flowers are
found in these gardens-the mimosa
and the Mexican rose, specie of the
hibiscus which changes its color
from white to pink or red in a sin
gle day; wistaria and several varie-
ties of magnolia, abound in the
area.
But in these Charleston gardens.
1t Is not the flowers, the blooms
alone that make for their beauty;
the gardens are worth seeing any
time Of the year because of their
ordered walks, the perfect arrange
ment of bushes, trees, marble
benches, pergolas and pools. None
OF the gardens are strictly formal;
they are merely built on formal Eng
lish garden patterns. Nature is al
lowed some free rein-the informal
ity of Nature sheds slight, pleasing
sheen Of attractiveness over mans
arbitrary geometry. Along the box
hedges and patterned jessamine
beds will be shaggy live oaks with
moss-hung branches. Along with
rectangular rejecting pools appear
the natural water lines of the weird
bayou water.
Let us take some of the more IA
nous of these gardens; there are
the Magnolia Gardens, the creation
of Rev. John Grimke Drayton, whose
doctor advised an outdoor life, and
who spent his imagination and deli
cate genius developing what John
Galsworthy named the worlds most
beautiful gardens They are on the
Ashley River road, IL miles west of
Charleston. There are the Middle
ton Place Gardens, miles farther
on the same road Is. c. CD, whose
fame was great even in England as
early as the 18th century. Then
there are Cypress Gardens, which
were established years ago and then
abandoned to the jungle to be re-
claimed a century later by a nature
loving public. Their weird, other
world beauty is best viewed by boat