The cluster of notable 19th-century gardens in West Feliciana are outstanding examples of what unlimited time, wealth, labor, and horticultural knowledge, combined with the rich loess soil and a happy climate, could produce in antebellum culture. These gardens remain monuments to past glories and to the hardiness of plantings.

Testament to the tenacity as well as the fragility of historic settings, Afton Villa’s gardens have long outlived the flamboyant mansion they were designed to complement. Particularly spectacular in the springtime, the gardens are one of the features on the Audubon Pilgrimage, as the West Feliciana Historical Society opens the doors to antebellum mansions and glorious gardens in celebration of Audubon’s stay in the parish.

Rosedown Gardens The 28-acre gardens begun by Martha Turnbull in 1836 were tended by her in good time and bad until her death in 1896. In 1957 Catherine Fondren Underwood began a restoration lasting 40 years. Today the gardens are part of a State Historic Site. www.lastateparks.com

"The rich magnolias covered with fragrant blossoms, the holly, the beech, the tall yellow poplar, the hilly ground and even the red clay, all excited my admiration. Such an entire change in the fall of nature in so short a time seems almost supernatural, and surrounded once more by numberless warblers and thrushes, I enjoyed the scene."

So reads the journal of John James Audubon as he recorded his arrival in 1821 at Oakley Plantation.