The Beauty at Brookgreen Gardens

Close to where I'm staying is a 9000-acre wildlife preserve and sculpture garden called Brookgreen Gardens, a lovely, idyllic, romantic setting with luscious two-hundred-year-old live oaks that are dripping with Spanish moss and grassy greens adorned with sculptural figures of Dianas, nymphs, muses, naked women and men, among the ferns and palms.

I'll let the images tell this story ...

This commemorates "The Visionaries"  Archer and Anna Huntington who reclaimed four rice plantations
to create this beautiful homage to sculptural art, flora and fauna.

Though I didn't visit the Butterfly House, there were plenty flitting around the flowers

I LOVED this delicate trio of dancing women

As in any sculpture garden worth its salt, plenty of places to sit and dream.

Little courtyards with pools and more bronzes

 

Anna was a sculptor and
so was her sister.

Well, as much as I enjoyed the visit, I realized I'm a much bigger fan of more contemporary works and quite prefer the DeCordova in Massachusetts and the New Orleans Museum of Art Sculpture Gardens...but perhaps I'm just not in that romantic idyllic mood.  Still, I thoroughly enjoyed the fabulous gift shop with all sorts of things I loved.  

Some contemporary birdhouses...

A completely charming deviled egg plate that my friend Nancy should have in her collection...

         

and this wonderful cut-wood piece.

And what did I buy in this gem of a gift shop?  Well, two wood, fabric and twine birds (half off!) because when could I ever have enough Christmas ornaments ? 

and this sweet little gift card because it is a Windy Tree (by Paris Bottman) and you should already know the special meaning TREES have for me.

I took that small card and added it to my little collage and below you can see that my Chinaman has a new companion —  a monkey!  He's very darling...

Well, in closing this post, I leave you (and me) with something I saw in the gift shop that gave a lift to my spirits and reminded me to ...

So if you find yourself near Murrell's Inlet, South Carolina, Brookgreen Gardens has boat rides and a zoo and some real nice places to sit and eat...y'all come back now cause there's way more to see...