The garden that 1900s Europeans said rivaled the Grand Canyon is still here outside Charleston

It’s been wowing visitors since 1870

Twelve miles northwest of downtown Charleston, South Carolina, a 400-acre property sits along the Ashley River with a reputation that goes back to the 1800s.

Around 1900, European travel guides put this garden on a short list with the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls as one of the three places in America you had to see. The garden is still here.

The live oaks are still draped in Spanish moss. And the longer you walk, the harder it is to leave.

Three centuries of history grow in this soil

Thomas and Ann Drayton sailed from Barbados in 1676 and built Magnolia as a rice plantation along the Ashley River.

The enslaved people they brought with them cleared the land, built the infrastructure, and cultivated Carolina Gold rice that made the Drayton family wealthy.

In the 1840s, the Rev. John Grimke Drayton inherited the property and began reshaping the grounds into a romantic-style garden, reportedly to charm his Philadelphia-born bride.

The Drayton family has held the property for more than 300 years, and it sits on the National Register of Historic Places.

Paths wind through moss, water and azaleas

These gardens don’t march in straight lines or trim their hedges into perfect squares.

They grow around the landscape, not against it, which is what makes them America’s last large-scale romantic-style garden.

Gravel pathways loop around lakes and ponds beneath live oaks old enough to dwarf the people walking under them. Camellias flower from late fall through early spring.

Azaleas peak in early April, and the garden holds one of the largest camellia collections in the country, with about 900 varieties, some planted in the 1820s. A few azalea types here were once thought to be extinct.

The Long White Bridge and its mirror image

One image from this property gets shared more than any other: a long white bridge stretching across Big Cypress Lake, its reflection sitting perfectly still in the water below.

The Rev. Drayton likely had enslaved workers build the original bridge in the 1840s. A fallen tree badly damaged it in 2020, and crews rebuilt it using old-growth cypress.

Six more bridges cross the waterways throughout the grounds, including a steep red one arching over the Bamboo Garden, and several smaller crossings framed by bald cypress and flowering shrubs.

Audubon walked this swamp before the Civil War

Naturalist John James Audubon visited the plantation before the war, and the 60-acre blackwater wetland on the property now carries his name.

The Audubon Swamp Garden runs through a cypress and tupelo landscape that enslaved workers originally shaped into rice paddies.

You explore it on boardwalks, dikes, and bridges that cut through territory you couldn’t otherwise reach on foot. The property has been a managed wildlife refuge since 1975.

The swamp holds no stocked fish or imported animals, and in spring, egrets, herons, and waterfowl nest within feet of the walking path.

267 bird species live or pass through here

Birders have logged 267 species on the property, which puts it among the top birding sites in the Southeast.

The swamp rookery is where the action concentrates: anhingas, great blue herons, white egrets, and wood ducks all nest close enough to watch.

On Sunday mornings, the plantation runs guided bird walks led by local ornithologists. Rare sightings have included fulvous whistling ducks, black rails, and yellow-headed blackbirds.

About a mile from the entrance, a three-story Wildlife Observation Tower looks out over the old rice fields and toward the Ashley River.

Alligators and peacocks roam the same grounds

The wetlands hold more than birds. Alligators move through the water, river otters slip through the reeds, and bobcats and yellow-bellied turtles share the property with them.

Bald eagles and ospreys circle above on a regular basis. Near the entrance, peacocks wander freely among the visitors.

The Wildlife Center houses rescued native animals that can’t return to the wild, including miniature horses, goats, and a donkey.

The Nature Train runs a 45-minute loop around the property’s perimeter, passing through forests, wetlands, and historic sites while guides call out the wildlife along the way.

Mazes, Scriptures and orchids grow here too

Several distinct gardens sit within the larger grounds, each with its own character.

Flowerdale, established around 1680, is one of the oldest formal gardens in America, with boxwood-framed beds and statuary.

The Biblical Garden grows plants named in Scripture, including cinnamon, pomegranate, olive, hyssop, and saffron, with signs connecting each plant to specific verses.

A horticultural maze modeled on Hampton Court uses about 500 camellia shrubs and Burford holly.

The Barbados Tropical Conservatory grows orchids and plants from the limestone hills of Barbados, tracing the Drayton family back to their Caribbean origins.

The Ashley River trail runs under old-growth oaks

The River Walk follows the Ashley River bank beneath live oaks that have been standing for centuries.

More than six miles of trails spread across the property, moving through hardwood forest, wetlands, rice field impoundments, and highland areas. You can bring a bike or walk at your own pace.

From late spring, a seasonal Wildlife Boat Tour takes passengers out on the Ashley River, where alligators, herons, egrets, and bald eagles appear along the banks. Dogs on leashes are welcome on the grounds.

The current house floated down the river

The house standing on the property today was built in 1874 as a country cottage, built during Reconstruction after Union troops burned the original during the Civil War.

Its oldest section has a stranger history: workers constructed it before the Revolutionary War near Summerville, then floated the whole structure down the Ashley River to its current site after the war ended.

Guided tours move through 10 rooms furnished with Early American antiques and Drayton family pieces, including Audubon-related artwork and paintings spanning several generations.

A free History Room on the first floor holds old photographs and documents about the property’s past.

Five cabins preserve 150 years of Black history

The From Slavery to Freedom tour runs with general admission and puts the full weight of the plantation’s history in front of you.

Five restored cabins line a path called “The Street,” each one set up to represent a different period in African American life at Magnolia, from the 1850s through the late 1990s.

People lived in these cabins continuously from slavery through freedom and into the following generations.

A 2009 archaeological dig beneath and around the cabins recovered more than 400 shards of colonoware pottery made in West African traditions, along with a rare hand-made spindle counterweight.

Something’s blooming here in every single month

More than 20,000 camellia plants flower in waves from mid-November through April beneath the forest canopy. By early April, the azaleas take over, turning the paths pink, red, purple, and white.

Summer shifts to native wildflowers and duckweed spreading across the swamp water while nesting birds reach their peak activity. In the fall, the rose garden comes into bloom and the camellias start up again.

The property stays open 364 days a year. The only day the gates close is Christmas.

Visit Magnolia Plantation & Gardens in Charleston, South Carolina

You’ll find the property at 3550 Ashley River Road, about 20 minutes from downtown Charleston on SC Highway 61. Gates open at 9 a.m. daily.

General admission covers the gardens, Audubon Swamp Garden, Wildlife Center, Nature Train, conservatory, maze, and the From Slavery to Freedom tour.

The house tour, Discovery Tour, and seasonal boat tour cost extra and you buy those tickets on-site the day you visit. Plan for at least three to four hours.

Wear comfortable shoes on the gravel paths, and bring insect repellent from late spring through fall.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

Read more from this brand:

• The failed Civil War beach assault that convinced 180,000 Black Americans to join the Union army
• Charleston’s peninsula packs 350 years into a few walkable blocks
• How freed slaves saved Charleston’s most important historic site