Brookgreen Gardens

Brookgreen Gardens occupies four former colonial-era rice plantations along the Waccamaw Neck, fifteen miles south of Myrtle Beach in Murrells Inlet, and holds the country's largest permanent collection of American figurative sculpture.

The experience

Archer and Anna Hyatt Huntington bought the land in 1931 and began placing Anna's sculptures among the live oaks and formal garden rooms. The collection now exceeds 1,400 works. The grounds are organized into distinct areas: a Lowcountry Zoo with native and domestic animals, a raptor aviary, a butterfly house that peaks in midsummer, and creek boat excursions that follow the old rice canals into salt marsh where ospreys and herons work the shallows. The Lowcountry History and Nature Center handles the complicated history of rice cultivation along this coast. What separates Brookgreen from any other botanical garden is the integration of sculpture and landscape: garden rooms move from formal European designs into naturalistic Lowcountry plantings, each room reframing the bronze and marble inside it. Plan a full day. Visitors who give it less consistently say they wish they had given it more.

Logistics

Open Monday through Wednesday and Friday through Sunday, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursdays extend to 8 p.m., worth planning around in warmer months. Admission is $20 to $22 adults, $18 to $20 seniors, $10 to $12 children, and tickets stay valid for seven consecutive days. Roughly 25 minutes from central Myrtle Beach via Highway 17 South. Wear walking shoes. Creek boat tours and certain seasonal exhibits may need separate timed tickets.