Discover the enchanting gardens, and English roots, of
Fall in love with Charleston’s pretty pocket gardens and period architecture, faithfully recreated at Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival
One of the oldest cities in the United States, Charleston shares deep roots with England, thanks to the colonists who arrived on the South Carolina coast in 1670. They built grand period town and country houses with traditional formal gardens, in honour of the great English estates they’d left behind. The look is completed by narrow cobbled streets and smartly landscaped parks, including Middleton Place, one of America’s oldest landscaped gardens.
This shared narrative is captured in The Explore Charleston Garden, at this year’s Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival in July. The show garden combines the unique history of the English gardens of Charleston with the rich natural landscape and biodiversity of South Carolina, with its saltwater marshes, swamps, infamous Lowcountry plants and colourful palette. It promises to be a dreamy space to wander around.
Plan your visit to Explore Charleston’s garden at the Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival, 2-7 July
Originally named Charles Town, after King Charles II, by the English colonists, the port city of Charleston enjoyed great prosperity thanks to its location beside a vast natural harbour, nestled on the edge of the Atlantic Coast. The colony, which was a part of the British Empire until independence in 1776, thrived as a major hub for trade, exporting indigo, cotton and rice – a crop brought to Carolina through the Transatlantic slave trade – across the empire.
The loyalists to Charles II established the Charleston Colony as a place of religious freedom to entice workers, establishing Charleston as one of the most diverse and tolerant places in the New World.
“Charleston’s history is part of the story of England,” explains Tracey Todd, the museums director for the Historic Charleston Foundation. “After Charles II was restored to the monarchy, he rewarded eight of his supporters with a grant of land covering much of the south-eastern United States called Carolina.”
These men founded Charleston and began attracting more colonists to migrate across the Atlantic. Many English merchants and nobles sent their sons to America to seek their fortunes; some became fabulously wealthy and successful, later sending their sons back to the home country to study at Cambridge and Oxford.
“When they could afford it, families would return to England for a Grand Tour to develop taste and refinement, and to purchase English silver, furniture and porcelain to reflect their status,” says Todd.
A hot ticket on London’s summer festival calendar, the Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival is the largest flower and garden event worldwide. Organised by the Royal Horticultural Society, it immerses visitors in decorative floral displays and inspirational show gardens and celebrates innovative garden design. Sadie May Stowell, an award-winning garden designer, created the Explore Charleston Garden for this year’s festival, which she designed for the past three years. She says she finds endless inspiration in Charleston's diverse and elegant landscapes.
“The city of Charleston is a wonderful, unique mixture of traditional English styles and architecture alongside beautiful natural Lowcountry and wetlands landscapes,” says Stowell. The show garden merges ancestral English garden formality with the natural atmospheric allure of the Lowcountry grasses. Each element chosen by Stowell embraces the natural biodiversity and vital environmental aspects of the wild wetlands of South Carolina.
Recreating Charleston at home begins with colours. Garden designer Sadie May Stowell suggests a backdrop of vibrant green foliage with splashes of pink, blue and cream. The floral smells are a heady mix of jasmine, rose and fragrant tea olive osmanthus. Thankfully, all these can be grown in an English garden. To design a pocket garden of your own, create a symmetrical layout, ideally using reclaimed materials, with brickwork for edging. Paths can be filled with crushed shells or white gravel for that unique Charleston quality, and walls or garden boxes can be painted in its famed pastel hues. Stowell suggests a water feature, which can be as simple as a bird bath or more ornate and sculptural, with tiers. Use a water pump to allow the water to flow down. Boxwood topiary adds to the character of a courtyard space – box is happy in most soils with adequate drainage. Jasmine is a woody evergreen climber that thrives in a garden or courtyard's warm, sheltered corners. By tying wayward stems to a wall or trellis, you can carefully guide young plants to climb up.
“Many of the flowering plants I have chosen for Explore Charleston’s design at the Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival will grow well in UK gardens, such as salvia Amistad, Agapanthus [lily of the Nile], hydrangea and verbena bonariensis [purpletop vervain],” says Stowell.
“This city is a unique mixture of history and natural beauty – many of these wonderful features can easily be transported to a domestic English garden, so we can all enjoy Charleston’s special heritage at home.”
For a taste of Charleston at your garden parties this summer, try making this citrus and floral-accented cocktail. Repeating the Past is The Spectator Hotel’s take on the classic pre-prohibition cocktail the Fitzgerald, its name inspired by a line from The Great Gatsby. Better still, take a trip to the hotel’s sumptuous speakeasy-style bar in the city of Charleston where head bartender and master mixologist Allen Lancaster will mix one up for you himself.
Swirling wrought-iron gates are a key characteristic of Charleston's gardens. Many are the work of the famed artisan blacksmith Philip Simmons. Born just off the Charleston peninsula in 1912, Simmons was a master of his craft, and some of his work can be seen in the Smithsonian Institute. Take a guided walk around the city to see some of his stunning garden gates, including those in Stolls Alley in the Historic District.
The settlers built houses and landscapes inspired by England: gardens were carefully designed with classical English landscaping, abundantly planted with scented roses, verdant ivy and neat shrub archways with boxwood topiary-lined pathways. Classical features and statues, formal brick edging and structural ironwork brought a nostalgic English atmosphere to the city.
These traditional style gardens, introduced throughout the 17th century in Charleston, were created for both the more extensive, wealthier, manicured green spaces as well as smaller ‘pocket gardens’ across the city, many of which have been carefully retained as part of the cultural and historic landscape of this great port metropolis.
Plants that were first discovered in other parts of the world, such as camellias and azaleas from Asia, were then brought back to England. From England, many of these exotic plants then went to America. American trees including oaks and magnolias, which found their way from America to England, in turn cultivated a horticultural cross-pollination across the ocean.
Charleston, South Carolina
The pocket gardens the early settlers developed were initially designed as kitchen gardens. Still, they became historically central to Charleston, as enslaved African cooks grew traditional seeds from their own homelands in these urban green spaces.
“We cannot forget the difference between an American and an English country house,” Todd reminds us. “Enslaved Africans built the great gardens in Charleston. Rice was brought to Carolina through the slave trade, as the conditions for growing it were perfect. It was then shipped to England, the Caribbean and Europe, and made Charleston the wealthiest city in the North American Colonies in the 18th century. This wealth allowed the white colonists to maintain their connections and affinity with England.”
Today, Charleston’s historic charm is evident in its well-preserved architecture and iconic landmarks such as Rainbow Row, a series of colourful Georgian houses; a bustling harbour and an abundance of lush gardens; and beautiful public parks, including White Point Gardens, Magnolia Plantation and Middleton Place.
A 300-year-old horticultural legacy awaits at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens. The gardens developed a wilder romantic style in the 19th century when the owner, the Rev John Grimké Drayton, developed the land to entertain and impress his wife. Today, its 66 acres offer six miles of trails, including a swamp and bamboo garden. Expect colour all year round: camellias bloom in winter, spring welcomes the azaleas and summer blossoms include roses, hydrangea, magnolia and gardenia. In autumn, Japanese maple, sweetgum, bald cypress and black tupelo take centre stage. Magnolia’s story also covers the enslaved people who laboured on the rice fields and who (after emancipation) worked on the estate as paid gardeners.
Style icons: The Pineapple Fountain in Charleston Harbour, above, the cobbled streets, below, and the refined grandeur of the town’s buildings, below, evoke English sensibilities
Many English merchants and nobles sent their sons to America to seek their fortunes; some became fabulously wealthy and successful, later sending their own sons back
A city bursting with historic charm
The Show Garden
There are many varieties of buxus or boxwood, a typically slow-growing and hardy evergreen shrub characteristic of formal gardens. It is clipped into topiarised shapes and used as a low hedge to edge planting borders and pathways. It is known as boxwood because its wood was used to make small decorative boxes.
Click on an image to see some of the flowers and shrubs
that are typical of Charleston’s gorgeous gardens,
green spaces and coastal areas
Did you know?
Charleston green is another common colour in this vibrant city. It can be found on many shutters, window boxes and front doors.
A deep green, it looks black until it’s in direct sun, when its true colour is revealed. Local legend has it that the colour was created during the major rebuilding of the city after the American Civil War. Eschewing the black paint that the Union troops had sent, the colour-loving Charlestonians added yellow to create a green.
The pastel-hued haint blue is the colour of choice for porch ceilings around Charleston and the Lowcountry. A blend of milk, indigo dye, lime and other pigments, the Gullah, or Geechee, population painted their porch ceilings this watery blue shade to ward off bad spirits who supposedly wouldn’t cross water.
Crushed oyster shells were often used to pave roads in Charleston. Not only were they easier to walk on than cobblestones, but it was also a way to reuse the surplus oyster shells. Oyster beds proliferated along the marshes that line the Ashley and Cooper Rivers. Now known as White Point, the tip of the Charleston peninsula was called Oyster Point by the colonists.
The pineapple is a symbol of Charleston’s hospitality. The spiky, sweet-fleshed fruit was the sign of a warm welcome back in England: sea captains speared them on sticks and displayed them outside their homes after they’d arrived home from a long voyage, signifying they’d returned safely and that guests were welcome into their home. Motifs of the tropical fruit can be seen around the city – the most famous example is the Pineapple Fountain on Charleston Harbour.
The settlers' gardens were designed with classical English landscaping; abundantly planted with roses, ivy and shrub archways
A floral tribute to Charleston in a glass
Place all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice cubes, shake vigorously and pour into a coupe glass to serve.
* If you can’t source Hat Trick gin, made by the Charleston-based distillery, you can substitute it for another botanical forward one such as The Botanist Islay Dry Gin.
England and Charleston's shared horticultural history
Picture perfect: Charleston is renowned for tree-lined pathways, above, and its love of bold pastel hues, below
A lasting legacy: The Charleston architectural style, above, was brought over by colonists who arrived in 1670, below
Visitors will be enchanted as they wander past the garden’s manicured hedges, with symmetrical planting patterns evoking the romanticism of Charleston gardens, before transitioning seamlessly into the free-flowing, untamed beauty of the Lowcountry and its native flora.
The garden pays homage to the rich history of the city’s pocket gardens, utilising a range of reclaimed materials, brick and wrought iron. Stowell selected these hardscaping elements to highlight the skills and materials in the city in its early history: handmade brickwork, ironworks forged by blacksmiths and crushed shells.
These details can be seen in the wrought-iron railings and gates that will provide garden boundaries and the antique cast iron features that are focal points. The local tradition of using crushed oyster shells in the cement of the brickwork around Charleston is also replicated.
“The mixture of styles and unique landscapes, and the beauty wherever you look, is why I love Charleston”
Sadie May Stowell
The planting colour scheme will be a rich tapestry of green foliage with pink, cream and blue. Ivy winds through the planting, as in Charleston Gardens, creating a dense green backdrop for other plants and flowers to shine. Stowell has chosen plants including windmill palm, star jasmine, common ivy, panicle hydrangea and topiary. These are found and used widely in the city to create the classic Charleston pocket garden approach.
Water is another critical element in the garden, from its wetlands – Charleston is surrounded by Lowcountry wetlands which are environmentally crucial as a species habitat and help alleviate flooding – to its fountain. The pocket gardens in the city often feature a fountain or pool of water, typical of traditional formal garden design.
The centrepiece of Explore Charleston’s show garden is a classical antique water feature inspired by the city’s iconic Chapel Street Fountain. “I was captivated by this antique cast iron fountain from the mid-19th century,” says Stowell, “It has such a beautiful vase-shaped outline.”
The city beyond its botanic appeal inspires Stowell. “The mixture of styles and unique landscapes and the beauty wherever you look is why I love Charleston,” she explains.
“The people there are wonderfully welcoming and friendly, and the city has fantastic outside spaces to socialise and relax. Just walking along the beautiful streets is inspiring; seeing the old buildings and famous fountains adds such beauty, [and] gives you a sense of the city’s fascinating history,” she says.
Visitors will be enchanted as they wander past the garden’s manicured hedges, with symmetrical planting patterns evoking the romanticism of Charleston
Plan your visit to Explore Charleston’s garden at the Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival, 2-7 July 2024
Scents of the South
Create your own corner of Charleston
Capture the scents and colour tones of the southern city in your own outside space
Buxus
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Live oaks stand vanguard over Charleston’s landscape, with vast horizontal canopies that can sweep down to the ground. These trees are national treasures, synonymous with the city and the Deep South. To admire a majestic quercetum of live oaks, head to Boone Hall Plantation on the banks of Wampacheone Creek. In 1743, the Boone family planted two rows of oak trees, and it took roughly 200 years for the huge moss-festooned branches to conjoin in an arch, creating the dramatic Avenue of the Oaks that beautifully frames the driveway. A similarly mesmerising approach can be discovered at the McLeod Plantation of James Island with its elegant oak alley.
Mighty oaks from little acorns grow
Timeless beauty: The Angel Oak, popular with tourists, is said to be up to 1,500 years old
Half an hour’s drive away are the Magnolia Plantation & Gardens of Ashley River. Famed for their azaleas and camellias, Magnolia Gardens offer a wild woodland of ancient oaks, veiled with Spanish moss and ivy, that drape over the grasses and swamps where alligators peer out of the water.
Arguably the most iconic individual tree is the Angel Oak of Johns Island, with debates on its age suggesting it could be between 400 to 1,500 years old. This arboreal celebrity stands at 65 feet high, with a shading area of 17,000 square feet. It's free to visit, and attracts around 400,000 admirers every year. Dendrophiles can no longer climb its historic boughs, touching or hugging the tree is off limits too, but you can still appreciate its natural beauty from a distance.
Other key destinations renowned for live oaks include Drayton Hall, Middleton Place and Charles Towne Landing.
These trees are national treasures, synonymous with the city and the Deep South
42ml Hat Trick botanical gin* 21ml Giffard pamplemousse 7ml Lillet rosé 21ml fresh grapefruit juice 21ml fresh lemon juice 14ml sugar syrup 3 dashes grapefruit bitters
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Magnolia Plantation Gardens
For more ideas on where to visit in the city, go to Explore Charleston
Plan your visit to Explore Charleston’s garden at the Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival, 2-7 July, and start planning your escape to this historic city
Formally known as hedera helix, common ivy is a vigorous, fast-growing and low-maintenance woody evergreen perennial. Primarily grown as a climbing vine or for trailing ground cover, this versatile plant, with its distinctive variegated leaves, is found in most Charleston gardens and on many buildings.
Common Ivy
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A sweet-smelling climber, star jasmine, or trachelospermum jasminoides, is a species of flowering plant in the apocynaceae family, native to eastern and south-eastern Asia. With glossy green leaves and white flowers in summer, it is well suited to Charleston’s sunny, sheltered gardens.
Star Jasmin
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Also known as the African blue lily, this is a popular border plant worldwide, especially in Mediterranean climates. Known for its brilliant blue flowers, the large and elegant perennial is native to the KwaZulu Natal and Western Cape provinces of South Africa.
Agapanthus Blue
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Lending an ethereal effect to gardens, the moisture-loving Spanish moss, or tillandsia usneoides, thrives in humid climates and is most known in the southern US. A beautiful silvery plant, it is commonly found trailing from trees growing around Charleston, adding an unmistakable charm to the character of the gardens in this city.
Spanish Moss
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A hardy palm with a hairy trunk and fan-like fronds, the windmill palm, or trachycarpus fortunei, is native to China's subtropical and temperate mountain forests. Suited to cooler climates, it was chosen to add a tropical touch to formal English gardens and is characteristic of Charleston's gardens and green spaces.
Windmill Palm
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This vigorous, upright, rapid-growing deciduous shrub is native to China and Japan. Also known as hydrangea paniculata, it has pretty creamy white flowers in summer, and can be seen in many of the gardens around Charleston.
Panicle Hydrangea
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Native to the southern Atlantic and Gulf coasts, sweetgrass – also known as gulfhairawn muhly or muhlenbergia filipes – is a tall, clump-forming perennial grass. It has narrow, rolled leaves or threads with distinctive pinkish-purple clusters in autumn. For centuries, South Carolina's Gullah community has used the native grass for the tradition of sweetgrass basket weaving.
Sweetgrass
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Cypress Gardens was created in 1927 by Benjamin Rufus Kittredge on the former rice fields and swamp land of Dean Hall Plantation. Cypress and tupelo trees flourish in the moist land alongside blossoming azaleas, magnolias and camellias. The gardens also house the Swamparium, Heirloom Garden and a butterfly house. Its roughly 3.5 miles of paths allow visitors to enjoy the gardens on foot. Alternatively, swamp boat rides offer a new perspective of the landscape from the dark waters.
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Middleton Place
Cypress Gardens
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For a relatively compact garden in an urban setting, head to Nathaniel Russell House. Russell, a wealthy merchant and slave trader, had a manicured geometrically arranged garden created in 1808 to complement his Adam-style neoclassical home that's renowned for its three-storey, cantilevered flying staircase. The original gardens may have included parterres, an orchard and practical vegetable and herb gardens. Today, expect a circular flower bed, manicured hedges and a riot of tulips in the spring.
Nathaniel Russel House Garden
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These spectacular horticultural spaces offer green-fingered joy throughout the year.
Four must-see gardens in Charleston
These spectacular horticultural spaces offer green-fingered joy throughout the year.
Four must-see gardens in Charleston
These spectacular horticultural spaces offer green-fingered joy throughout the year.
Four must-see gardens in Charleston
These spectacular horticultural spaces offer green-fingered joy throughout the year.
Four must-see gardens in Charleston
Explore 65 acres of formal cultivation at America’s oldest landscaped gardens, where planting began in 1741. Based on fashionable European designs of the day, there’s an emphasis on order, precision and balance. Each Middleton generation added something new, from camellias and tea olives to crepe myrtles. Notably, Williams Middleton brought azaleas to the plantation that now number over 100,000, and the French botanist André Michaux brought the Middletons one of the first Japanese camellias to be planted in America. Guided garden tours are included in general admission, and you can also book Beyond the Fields: Enslavement at Middleton Place to learn about the enslaved people who built and worked the estate.
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Plan your visit to Explore Charleston’s garden at the Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival, 2-7 July