Academy of the Sacred Heart: Church
Street, PO BOX 310,
Grand Coteau, LA 70541, (318)662-5275.
- Established in 1821,
the Academy, a girls' school, contains formal gardens and a magnificent oak
alley.
Acadian Village and Gardens:
200 Greenleaf Drive,
Lafayette, LA 70506 (318)981-2364.
- This replica of an 1820s
Acadian village sits on over 10 acres of land which is home to authentic looking
houses, stores, and chapels with period gardens.
Afton Villa Gardens: 9247 N. US
Highway 61, Box 993,
St. Francisville, LA 70775 (225)635-6773.
- The ruins of a
Gothic Mansion is the site of 10 acres of gardens and 30 acres of park-like
grounds. A half mile oak alley, formal parterre, statuary, terraces, hundreds of
azaleas and even peacocks ornament the romantic grounds.
American Rose Center:
8877 Jefferson Paige Road (Exit 5 off I-20),
West Shreveport, LA (318)
938-5402.
- This marvelous 118 acre park exhibits over 20,000 rose bushes of over
400 varieties displayed in 61 separate gardens is the headquarters for the
American Rose Society. Gardens includes the
Greater Atlanta Fragrance Garden, the Winston-Salem Garden, the San Francisco
Garden, and the Topeka Garden.
Audubon State Historic
Site: 11788 Highway 965, P.O. Box 546,
St. Francisville, LA 70775
(225)635-3739 or (888)677-2838.
- Nestled in the 100-acre woodland site is Oakley
House, home of John James Audubon for a short time. The grounds include formal
and kitchen gardens, and a nature trail through magnolia and poplar trees.
Audubon Park and Zoological Gardens: 6500 Magazine Street,
New Orleans, LA
70118 (504)861-2537 or (800)774-7394.
- This 53 acre zoo features naturalistic
habitats such as the Asian Domain, the African Savanna, the Australian Outback,
the Louisiana Swamp, the Jaguar Jungle as homes to over 1,500 wild creatures.
Barnwell Garden and Arts Center:
601 Clyde Fant Parkway,
Shreveport, LA 71101 (318)673-7703.
- The Barnwell
features a domed botanical garden conservatory showcasing tropical plants,
seasonal and native plantings, and a Fragrance Garden. Plants are labeled in
French and English. This center specializes in sculpture.
Beau
Fort Plantation: 4078 Louisiana Highway 494 119,
Bermuda, LA 71457
(318)352-9580 or (318)352-5340.
- Beau Fort, built on the former site of Ft.
Charles in 1830, features an early Creole-style home with a 84 foot gallery at
the culmination of a live oak alley.
Beauregard Keyes House and Garden: 1113
Chartres Street,
New Orleans, LA 70116 (504)523-7257.
- The gardens of this restored Greek Revival Cottage
were created in 1826.
Briarwood, Home of Caroline Dorman:
Louisiana Highway 9, 216 Caroline Dormon Road,
Saline, LA 71070 (318) 576-3379.
- Preserving native Louisiana flora was the lifetime passion of Caroline Dorman
who collected and replanted her favorite native plants at Briarwood. This wild
garden has a special emphasis the Louisiana iris.
Burden Research Plantation: 4560 Essen Lane,
Baton Rouge, LA 70809
(504)763-3990.
- This Louisiana State University plant research facility displays
an All America Rose Selections accredited garden. Also on the Research
Plantation Grounds are Windrush Gardens, listed below.
Butler-Greenwood Plantation: 8345
US Highway 61,
St. Francisville, LA 70775 (225)635-6312.
- This historic
plantation home, now a Bed and Breakfast, is surrounded by 50 acres of
landscaped grounds including sunken and formal gardens featuring camellias,
azaleas, hydrangea, sweet olive, magnolia fuscata, boxwood parterres and
old-fashioned garden plants.
Catalpa Plantation: 9508 US Highway 61,
St. Francisville, LA 70775
(225)635-3372.
- A Historic National Register plantation home in a landscaped
setting that is still lived in by descendants of the original family. A 1,500
foot live oak alley still retains most of the original trees.
Cohn Memorial Arboretum: 12056 Foster Road,
Baton Rouge, LA 70815-6743
(225)775-1006.
- This Arboretum offers meandering trails through 16 acres of more
than 250 labeled varieties of native and exotic trees and shrubs. Special
collections include a Japanese Maple Collection, an Orchid/Bromeliad House, a
Tropical House, a Camellia Collection, Evergreen and Conifer collections, a
Crape Myrtle Collection and an Herb/Fragrance Garden.
ELsong Garden and
Conservatory: 2006 Riverside Drive,
Monroe, LA 71201 (318)387-5281 or
(800)362-0983.
- At the site of the Biedenharn Home (the first bottler of
Coca-Cola) and the Bible Museum, this formal garden features flowering plants,
several water features, and sculpture. Music, triggered by lasers, accompanies
the visitors on their garden strolls.
Gallier
House: 1132 Royal Street,
New Orleans, LA 70116 (504)525-5661 or (504)
523-6722.
- An elegant 1857 restored French Quarter townhouse with courtyards,
designed by architect James Gallier, stands in what was formerly the Ursuline
Convent orchard
Hilltop Arboretum:
11855 Highland Road (south of Louisiana State University Campus), P.O. Box
82608,
Baton Rouge, LA 70884 (225)767-6916.
- The University and the Friends of
Hilltop Arboretum operate this 16-acre site originally developed as a nursery
and display garden for native plants. Featured plants include century-old oaks,
magnolias, tall grasses, bamboo, and wildflowers. The garden was designed in the
form of a cathedral with a large central nave, passages and nooks. The nave and
rooms are grass, while the walls are trees, shrubs and bamboo. Old tree trunks
are pillars.
Historic Kent
House Plantation: 3601 Bayou Rapides Road,
Alexandria, LA 71301
(318)487-5998.
- This authentic Creole plantation house, built prior to the
Louisiana Purchase, features an herb and vegetable garden and a parterre garden.
Hodges Gardens:
1000 Hodges Loop,
Florien, LA 71429 (800)354-3523 or (318)586-4020.
- Hodges and
his wife began with a 4,700 plot of logged barren land and created an
experimental arboretum that now includes 70 acres of formal gardens on 3 levels.
More than 50 seasonally changed flower beds are situated among rocks and
waterfalls in an old quarry. 3 formal rose gardens include an All America Rose
Selections garden. Walkways are edged by a stream and there is a 7-mile scenic
drive. The garden also offers a petrified tree. This Garden recently became a
Louisiana State Park.
Houmas House
Plantation and Gardens: 40136 Highway 942, Burnside,
Darrow, LA 70725
(225) 473-7841 or (888)323-8314.
- Once the country's largest sugar cane
plantation (20,000 acres sited on the Mississippi), this elegant Greek Revival
mansion is surrounded by formal gardens beneath moss-laden live oaks, some more
than 200 years old.
Ira S. Nelson
Horticulture Center: University of Southwestern Louisiana, 2206 Johnston
Street,
Lafayette, LA 70503 (318)482-6640.
- The Center houses ornamental plants
and consists of classrooms, laboratories and 24,000 square feet of greenhouses.
Jungle Gardens:
P.O. Box 126,
Avery Island, LA 70513 (318)369-6243.
- As the web site above
indicates, Avery Island is the home of Tabasco sauce. But it's also the site of
the fascinating Jungle Gardens, created by the second son of the creator of
Tabasco sauce. Two hundred acres exhibit a variety of ornamental plants he
collected as well as wildlife. Each year thousands of snowy white egrets and
other migratory water birds return to Bird City at the Gardens. A Chinese garden
contains fine Buddha from 1000 a.d.
Longfellow-Evangeline
State Historic Site: Route 31, 1200 North Main Street,
St. Martinville, LA
70582 (318)394-3754 or (888)677-2900.
- An 1815 raised Creole cottage style
plantation house has been supplemented by an 1820 Acadian-style barn moved to
the premises to demonstrate farmstead life in early Acadia. Gardens center
around vegetables, indigo, cotton, medicinal herbs and native plants.
Longue Vue House and Gardens: 7 Bamboo
Road,
New Orleans, LA 70124 (504)488-5488.
- The grounds of this elegant 8 acre
estate with a Classical Revival mansion is one large formal garden (designed
after the gardens of the Alhambra with striking fountains and pools), surrounded
by six smaller garden rooms. Twenty three fountains ornament the gardens. Other
gardens include the Pan Garden, the Portico Garden, and the Walled Gardens
(featuring roses), the Yellow Garden, the Canal Garden, the Pond Garden and the
Wild Garden (with natural forest walks featuring native plant materials).
Louisiana Purchase Gardens and Zoo:
Tichelli Road, P.O. Box 123,
Monroe, LA 71210 (318)329-2400.
- This 82 acre Zoo
is home to approximately 440 animals of 167 different species and, yes, there
are tigers! Lovely landscaped gardens are mingled with naturalistic habitats
that can be viewed by train or boat.
Louisiana State
Arboretum: 4213 Chicot Park Road,
Ville Platte, LA 70586 (318)363-6289 or
(888)677-6100.
- This 300 acres mature beech-magnolia forest is enhanced with
plantings of 133 species of trees and plants native to the state. Plants and
trees are labeled and can be viewed from miles of trails.
Louisiana
Tech University Arboretum: Reese Hall,
Ruston, LA 71272 (318)257-0211.
- A 50
acre arboretum used by the School of Forestry is located on the South Campus.
Mount Hope Plantation:
8151 Highland Road,
Baton Rouge, LA 70898-4952 (225)761-7000.
- The grounds of
this restored 1817 century plantation home recently re-opened for tours,
corporate functions and family reunions includes an antique rose garden.
New Orleans Botanical
Garden: City Park, 1 Palm Drive,
New Orleans, LA 70124-4608 (504)482-4888.
- This WPA city park project grew into a lovely botanical garden with 2,000
varieties of plants. The garden is divided into several theme gardens including
aquatics, ornamental trees, the Parterre (a formal rose garden), azaleas and
camellias, the Butterfly Walk, herb gardens, a ginger collection, and plants
native to Louisiana, the southeastern U.S. and other parts of the world. Also
located in the garden are a Conservatory (tropical plants), the recently
refurbished Garden Study Center, and the new educational and meeting facility,
the Pavilion of the Two Sisters (patterned after a European orangery).
R.W. Norton Art Gallery: 4747 Creswell Avenue,
Shreveport, LA 71106 (318)865-4201
-
This non-profit museum, featuring 24 galleries of original works of American and European art, is situated in
40 acres of beautifully landscaped grounds showcasing over 15,000 azaleas including approximately 100 native and
hybrid varieties (and the fall-blooming Encore). The gently rolling terrain also
displays a variety of other flowers, including native
iris, ginger lily, coneflower, canna lily, and black-eyed Susan beneath a canopy of hardwoods and pines.
Water features include several small streams, waterfalls, and a large ornamental pond at the center of the gardens.
Oak Alley Plantation: 3645
Highway 18 (Great River Road),
Vacherie, LA 70090 (225)265-2151 or
(800)442-5539.
- The "Grande Dame" of the Great River Road, a 1/4 mile canopy of
giant live oak trees, believed to be nearly 300 years old, forms an avenue
leading from the Mississippi to the classic Greek-revival style antebellum home.
Rip Van Winkle
Gardens (Live Oak Gardens): 5505 Rip van Winkle Road,
New Iberia, LA
70560-8167 (318)365-3332.
- Built by an actor who portrayed Rip Van Winkle, this
estate is a semi-tropical garden and nature preserve covering over twenty-five
acres adjacent to Lake Peigneur. Stately live oaks, some of them 300 years old,
are featured along with collections of ornamental plants including the Camellia
Trail, the Rip Van Winkle's Azalea Trail and the Summer Trail (hibiscus,
bougainvillea, and beds of exotic annuals and tropicals). A Japanese Garden also
graces the premises.
Rosedown Plantation State Historic Site: 12501 Highway 10,
St.
Francisville, LA 70775, (225)635-3332.
- Rosedown's 28 acres of formal gardens,
begun in 1835, became one of the most famous horticultural collections of the
19th century and now, with mature plantings, is still a stunning horticultural
display. Gardens include the Flower Garden, the North Parterre, Eve's Garden,
the Herb Garden, the Medicinal Herb Garden and a grove of century-old, 25 foot
tall camellias.
San
Francisco Plantation: Highway 44, River Road, P.O. Box AX,
Reserve, LA 70084
(504)535-2341.
- The ornate and lavish antebellum plantation house with grounds
has been authentically restored.
Shadows on the Teche: 317 E. Main Street,
New Iberia, LA 70560
(318)369-6446.
- This authentically restored and interpreted 1834 sugar plantation
house and garden with statuary possesses a wealth of documentary history.
Windrush Gardens: Next to the Rural Life Museum, Louisiana State
University, 4600 Essen Lane,
Baton Rouge, LA 70809 (225)765-2437.
- This
Victorian-style 25 acre garden features classical statuary, semi-formal gardens,
winding paths and open areas.