Louisiana Gardens

 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.  A PBS Victory Garden article about the parterre garden.

 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).

 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.

 Zemurray Gardens: (Scroll down) 23115 Zemurray Gardens Drive (Highway 40), Loranger, LA

 70446 (504)878-2284.

A lovely 150 acre azalea garden with a lake.