Southern Charm

Last week was spent in South Carolina visiting my husband's parents in Kiawah Island and soaking up some much needed sun. Kiawah is not far from the beautiful city of Charleston so we planned a day in town and, on my father-in-law's recommendation, visited the website of the Historic Charleston Foundation prior to our trip and booked tickets for a guided walking tour in the morning and an afternoon garden tour.

Charlestonians are clearly very house- and garden-proud and every home, whether large or small, is graced with greenery.

No possible detail is overlooked. Here the front steps are decorated with creeping fig vine (ficus pumila) that, according to our guide, needs to be trimmed weekly during the summer on account of its rapid growth.

The scent of Confederate jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides) is inescapable in Charleston during the Spring. Its vines flow over walls and around front doors.

Not even garages are neglected when it comes to enhancing the exteriors with flowering vines.

This is possibly the most beautiful garage I have ever seen, really too lovely even to be called a garage.

On to the garden tour...photographs were not permitted inside the private gardens which I can tell you was extremely painful for me; however, from outside the walls and through the iron gates I did snap a few.

What appealed to me about the Charleston gardens we saw, as well the plantings on and around the exteriors of the houses, is that order prevails. Yes, friends, my OCD extends to the outdoors - not for me the undisciplined, English cottage garden! My kind of garden employs a lot of boxwood, neatly trimmed hedges corralling tidy plants, trellis, tuteurs and strategically placed topiary. Whatever the medium, I love topiary.

Fortunately, my girls are truly good sports and, by now, quite used to my tireless explorations of every city we ever visit. Here I am with one of my beautiful daughters who is still managing a smile after viewing nine gardens. They make me proud.

The Historic Charleston Foundation tours we signed up for were part of the organization's Festival of House and Gardens which takes place from late March through late April. It is well worth a visit for a few days or a long weekend to take in some of the extraordinary properties on view.