Camelia Bud & Mandevillia Leaf

Camelia flower bud. It stopped right there

and didn't make it into a bloom.

Mandevillia leaf turned copper in January.

© Burke's Garden, 2010.

The Jungle Gardens of Avery Island

December 26, 2009.

1. The Founder

"In Louisiana, hard by the point where the sweeping curve of the Gulf of Mexico reaches the northern-most point of its arc there is a plug of salt that is eight miles (12.9 km) deep and, at its tip, is narrowed to a circumference of some six miles (9.6km).

Only the uppermost tip of that mountain of salt projects beyond the level of the reed-grown tide marshes through which it is thrust, with a skim of top soil to clothe it, and to form an "island" of high, firm ground that dominates the surrounding marshlands: Avery Island. Hundreds of acres of the soil that covers this mountain of salt are each year grown to the hottest peppers that ever came out of Old Mexico.

These two products - the salt that is mined from beneath the earth through a shaft 530 feet (161 m) deep, and the pepper that is harvested from the soil above it - constitute a foundation of a fortune which through many years have been devoted to the development of the most remarkable garden anywhere to be found, a garden whose cultivated and landscaped portion is more than 150 acres (60.7 hectares) in extent.

Though undeniably impressive, mere size is no measure of beauty. But for over 40 years this particular landscape had been molded to splendor by the talent and the imagination of Edward Avery McIlhenny whose home on Mayward Hill, is the focal point of the Avery Island gardens it overlooks. Today, it stands as a perpetual monument to him. To understand what happened to that pepper grown salt plug you should have known E. A. McIlhenny, the M'sieu Ned of all that countryside.

Mr. McIlhenny was an explorer, writer, business executive, naturalist, conservationist and a half a dozen of other "ists". He was the author of many books on nature, he bred hundreds of new varieties of plants; he saved the snowy egret from extinction at the hands of the plume hunters; he manufactured Tabasco sauce." (Quoted from the leaflet of The Jungle Gardens of Avery Island that's handed out to the visitors)

The house of E. A. McIlhenny,

the son of Edmund McIlhenny the founder of McIlhenny Co.

A private road in the Jungle Gardens going towards Ned's house.

2. The Live Oaks and Spanish Moss

3. The Bamboo Collection

4. Japanese Garden

5. Camelias and others

6. The Bird City

© Burke's Garden, 2009.