Despite today’s gripping chill, my husband, toddler and I made our way to one of our favorite places in Charleston. I remember our first visit there, the day before my husband started his intern year four and a half years ago. Every time we’ve visited it has seemed almost as though time stood still while we wound our way through acres of paths threading between oaks, azaleas and cyruss knees along the Ashley River. It’s one of the oldest gardens in America, tucked between Drayton Hall and Middleton Plantation off the old stagecoach highway along the Ashley. Our trip today was timed to see the ancient camellias in all their winter splendor. This is the only winter snow we see most years here in Charleston, the spread of pink and white petals in the gardens of our old and holy city.

I loved listening to my botonist-physician husband plan the air-layering of his grandmother’s old camellia’s to create our own shoots for our yard one day. This year at Christmas I gave him four of another variety of camellias, called Camellia sinensis, which are tea plants, to add to his extensive edible garden.  They grow well in our area, as evidenced by the only tea plantation in America being on Wadmalaw Island just across a few marsh creeks from our abode. The beautiful flowering plants in these photos are Camellia japonica, some of these being from plants now several hundred years old.

After winding through the camellia forest and our other favorite tucked away areas in the gardens, we made our way to the petting zoo, which was actually quite expansive. Birds from peacocks to turkeys and pheasants (which, incidently, I ate for the first time at Christmas dinner this year and found they were quite tasty), deer and goats and snakes and shetland ponies. They’ve expanded quite a bit since the last time we visited and our neice was head-butted by a rather aggressive goat.

My toddler decked out in her fur boots and hat…