Charleston -- William Gibbes Garden

In 1928 Cornelia Roebling commissioned landscape architect Loutrel Briggs to design formal gardens for her late 18th century Georgian-style home that would incorporate the spirit of the past and utilize local plant and hardscape materials. His design for this one acre property came to be known as the Charleston Garden Style that he replicated successfully many times. The current owner is restoring and enhancing Briggs' design with eleven distinct rooms, all behind screens formed by 19th century high brick walls and tall plants. The rooms are linked by shell flagstone or brick axial walkways with repeated colors, plant materials and shapes creating harmony. Magnolias, cedars, live oaks, crepe myrtles, palms, hollies, cypress, pittosporum, yew, boxwood, camellias, azaleas, liriope, mondo grass and ferns are repeated in many garden rooms, with pink, purple or white flowers predominating. The lawn garden to one side of the main residence is surrounded by shell walkways edged in brick with borders planted with conifers, hydrangeas, azaleas, boxwood, privet, tall hollies, and a large magnolia. The restored old garden that predates Briggs has four boxwood parterres planted with roses with a birdbath in the center. The three-foot pond with ogee corners has a pyramid-shaped boxwood in each corner, seasonal beds inside the wall with boxwood edging, island beds planted with camellias and mondo grass, and a small terrace with a bench off to one side shaded by wisteria. Cedars and crepe myrtles also provide shade in warm weather. A brick, unroofed summer house built in the 19th century by owner John Grimke Drayton has an 18th century marble entablature and is draped with white roses. Next to the summer house along the brick wall there is a new garden with two formal diamond- shaped beds planted in purple and white and two beds with magnolias. The east-west axial long walk behind the house was broken up by a later 25-foot square swimming pool; it is bordered by brick columns connected by chains draped with yellow roses and a pittosporum hedge clipped like waves. In the pool garden there are Meyer lemon standards, yoshino cherries, and verbenas. The court garden terrace behind the house is bordered by beds with camellias, ferns, liriope, aspidistra, mondo grass and ferns growing in brick walls. Beds alongside the drive and around the parking area feature a mature live oak, azaleas, roses, crepe myrtles and seasonal plantings that complement the pink stucco walls of the guest house. The old brick privy court is used for storage and for growing tomatoes, with a white picket fence atop a low brick wall. A trellis planted with confederate jasmine and a row of Italian cypress mark the transition to the citrus garden on the site of the old drying yard. There are grapefruit, kumquat, orange and lemon trees planted in two rows of octagonal beds, repeating the formal design of the parterre gardens. The property is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Persons associated with the garden include: William Gibbes and family (former owners, 1772-1794); Sarah Moore Smith family and descendants (former owners, 1794-circa 1885); J.B.E. Sloan family and descendants (former owners, 1885-circa 1928); Cornelia W. Roebling family and descendants (former owners, 1926-1984); Historic Charleston Foundation (former owner, 1984-1986); Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson Leath (former owners, 1986-1996); Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Trainer (former owners, 1996-circa 2006); Loutrel Winslow Briggs (1893-1977) (landscape architect, 1928); Dr. Eugene Johnson (landscape designer, 2018).