The Alabama Experience; On the Azalea Trail

the pope he's been tourism is big business immobile alabama with its warm climate would be a lie as natural appeal to people from colder climates in the north but it took a

brilliant blooms of an ornamental plant to bring will deal to their attention during the nineteen thirties forties and fifties visitors from the north was immobile for the annual azalea trail the ornamental azaleas they've driven to a deal had been imported here in the nineteen twenties specifically to attract tourists they were not native to move beyond after the nineteen fifties when his ideas that will grow further north were developed is a trial declined but the legacy of these a trail lives on immobile is a trial was a phenomenon here immobile it really i think helped to build a tourist industry here in the twenties and thirties people may have been coming to moby oh before that but but with the is a trail suddenly we had a national attention people were driving down their big open packers the movie

stars the board lot of all the streets to see the movie stars who are driving to low below the city is a is the southern evergreen there's a is for famous people up north couldn't grow those at first but it wasn't always that way with god catalogs from one of the south's most famous versions at the time which was just north immobile the big mail order nursery that ship plans all across the country by train it was started in the eighteen fifties and their catalogues from the eighteen fifties eighties seventies at the eighties have scores of comedians they have perhaps a hundred or more call divorce of roses they have three or four sites the popularity of azaleas immobile can be traced to sam lachlan a businessman who had come to know beal from charleston south carolina lachlan spearheaded an effort to admiral deal to the annual azalea trail that by visitors to other southeastern cities he had

seen visitors come to charleston for the annual azalea blooms and he thought that they would come below beale to in the nineteen twenties he encouraged people immobile to plant imported diseases says sam talk the chamber of commerce in a really getting to get behind this is a true phenomenon as a trails were stretching out people drove in their in their cars from from charleston to savannah to games will tallahassee mobley was right on the lip to new orleans to houston we are displayed well the trouble was he had a good people will grow say am they had to have many devices to give people and robots are the chamber of commerce came up with the idea of shoe if we can just get people are going to say every time i fill up and guess so people would give their press accounts from the twenties where people would go fill up their car and they would get a little tin cans with a southern indian as a unit to take home and play by the

forties and fifties there were so many southern indian save planet immobile that it looked like they had been here forever special events were held during march when he is in has ballooned each year thousands of runners participating in the aclu trail run they run along streets they used to have a pink line leading visitors to areas of the city with a brilliant buildings serving as hostesses for this age her run as i do events around will be all through the year isaiah the trail maids the regional is a huge roommates served as hostesses to tourists visiting a real nancy represented really nice

the original as ilya trail made competition had such regional appeal they grew into the americas junior miss competition but the irony is that this is a scene at the real things and alabama farmers were from alabama and all they were imports beautiful imports from asia that had originally been grown in europe in the eighteenth century in our houses here they imported them to europe from asia and and then they began to import them the philadelphia new york where they were also grown in hot houses and sold us forces it is we know that said by eighty four and somebody decided we are tried he's outside in the deep south where it's a lot warmer than it is here in philadelphia and they started doing that we know they did in charleston and go in in charleston south carolina that area and suddenly

lowe molly realize gosh the city's most orderly well in the deep south the southern indian is areas that were planted immobile cannot grow in the northern states but hybrid varieties developed in the nineteen fifties could when people would come to see no beals as areas have the opportunity to plan similar ornamental zinn their own gardens the tourist attraction of the annual as a trailer began to fade so what other cities dropped off this as a trivial moby all remained sort of the center of his early activity we even came to be known as the is a city because our listeners were so fine this is billy graham gardens it was a showcase and the aclu trails owned by coca cola bottlers water and at sea down and the land was originally but mrs democrat like to garden at sam lachlan suggestion <unk> demographic

directed the planting of resilience and the rule retreat became a spectacular tourist attraction it continues to attract hundreds of thousands of visitors each year the gardens interviewed by the business today are roughly around sixty five acres mr belen graphic artist about thousand acres in this general vicinity still owned by barnes today but what you see is sixty five acres we have about two hundred thousand visitors annually that come through the garbage each year visitors can go through a wonderful rose garden it's really interesting that when you look down from a bird's eye view that watermelon rebels one of the first members of the rotary club founding members hear him immobile and so are their rotary club if you look down the pattern of that rose garden the rotary wheel honest conservatories in the rose garden and the long war there one of the live oaks and then you come to the moment it's interesting

do you have sort of a very pastoral landscape and many of the guards have been created around the home you would think or are very formalized because they look a lot of europe and they saw the very classic a shake for more current but has no edges in and wonderful color and then with candles and rails and woody shrub so a lot of these arms around the home exactly the way he designed it years ago and then he created this big boy on their own way and works to have last lines of azaleas for more on was from charleston south carolina and he really was the one that had the idea that will be a sham is a trail and the bell ingress were all four they've traveled charleston and thought that the calm here for simonsen a reasonable deal they get on the bandwagon of those areas though ingress grew up in the twenties right around the time

is a trained i think that's one of the reasons why belly breath became a phenomenon and it was because of this is the eternal the taurus forthcoming suddenly they had a huge part of azaleas the floor when i got down to his credits leo laporte rene ritchie family history one place before the voiceover that happen to all of the ohio whole album live about two weeks of the year we were doing a party and the guards always thought it was i thought that there were about four square dancing cheek and all the ideas and innovation and i participate on during the depression years she had a band of friends or color in santa monica you know

sort of the inside of your results of the indictment your family has its place and she had a way of going around full veil volcanic knocking on doors sign up in a mine and it's the idea that media whatever shrubs he could spot she had a long tail that helps where an exotic which looked everywhere for what would they accept say three four five six seven eight hundred dollars depending on the situation for the introduction of people so good that they were helping the gardens that it becomes so popular and eric weld it was doing that before she acknowledged to the table and then hundreds of dollars a loaf of bread with six cents billion years ago and if you really want to solve pollution let's be right we are there's something so magical about to me about a

family that builds a garden as willing to share that part of the community and then to set up a foundation so this garden and that legacy continues well our investors and gardens today though ingress having actual taste and as we look i think toward the future no aggressive water will hold in the next twenty to fifty to a hundred years one of the things that i've taken my position that i have to be thinking about is that we have to honor the past by looking at the future will replace it will be looking for long term is how can we maintain the garden as if it was like pure and water and that's in contrast to make always to make sure that the horticultural standards that we visited are the highest and do their things and you are planning to create great art here that's that's the wonderful are about our culture and

painter takes and there's something he's partnered with the same thing that is in the plans of those plants grow by chains and so things are constantly changing so it's always a challenge to try to make sure that you create art of living things and that's a but that's the fun part or religion that's the fun part of gardening at the raw materials for horticultural artists are produced in nurseries and immobile area is home to a thriving nursery industry as you might expect as areas are a major product more bills reputation as these areas city is known across the country we made a lot more money selling drugs out of alabama that we make selling got nowadays it's become a huge industry of the nursery like flower would be that there are literally miles of plants they go on a normal and these plants are sold all over the country

right now the wholesale nurseries in alabama have many of them have a big regional market some have a huge national market and they're selling plants outside the region to a retailer tricks to resell although there are nurseries located across moby all in baldwin county is the town of sam's northwest immobile is the major center in the nursery industry the reason seems to be such a center for nurturing and to shrink the one of the weirdest spots rainfall wise in the country are shoals of good in it percolate well we have good climate we don't have real severe freezes in cold weather in the winter is probably hundred eighty five nurseries registered nurse who's insane syria the largest being probably three hundred acres plus the smallest gain back our greenhouse rich in a purse or continental they go anywhere

from two hundred employees to well this one is in indiana now you're in the early spring what's going to nurture my mid january because he's getting ready for the season spring during that time of year the bigger from from all over the south east coming from old lille to back plans to look a glance to settle what they need for their garden centers of their landscape jobs are far from their construction jobs or whatever they're doing god's family has been in the nursery business for three generations and has a reputation for introducing new plants for use in landscaping my grandfather started with saw his relatives' the welch's and right after or won an inertia because of the nineteen twenty one he started his own nurture and had nine children age boys and

one girl and they continued the tradition several boys stayed and and and work at the account under fisher is due to a present day had retired two years ago oh about twelve years ago i decided i want to grow maybe plans so a wife and i started this little nerve with eric garner should be chosen to do only being felt was native plants and we're making selections from plants that are growing we see we choose the dark believes darpa beer is more vigorous growth we choose to do that but the main reason to grow they plan to be used at plants as habitat restoration of our local birds and animals and

our insides of their local hear the hummingbirds for instance and change their migratory patterns because we've removed a lot of what they fail people plant what they called common part plants in a lot of cases to attract hummingbirds it's a great idea with the best ideas to give the same plants that were their start with women hummingbirds when the country was was first settled and the botanist here were exporting our beautiful plants to change and england and germany that have they got there in the first place and at the same time are ancestors who work pretty much tied to the sea nurture train were importing chinese porcelain and english and he is an architecture can a high society

was tied into a sort of global stylish influences and they brought in i guess the plant's gone to decorate their homes would imported azaleas that made moby oh famous are produced by the thousands that time diner streets but just across the road tom in their diet are developing beautiful blooms from those areas that are native to the gulf coast one of the main grocery working on is the native azaleas are where breeding for big balloons that can stand the heat and the deep self the gene pool reaching into or somewhere locals like oh stratum which is a yellow the fortified mosaic or the pink one which is at the messes on honeysuckle says those a very tolerant very vigorous growers that we're breeding them with other native as a as others say as from other parts of the country

to get bigger balloons would make the more he taught american native plants are used more in great britain and they are in alabama for landscape well one of the biggest selling plants in japan is the american dogwood won the best looking plants in china is the magnolia granda for art the state flower of august a tree of mississippi are plants are appreciative much more in the rest of the world we are your local we just do with the joneses do for our landscape sam michael and encourage the people will appeal to try something new and different in the nineteen twenties and no beals popularity army is ilya trail was the result the providence hospital foundation that's all flowers is carrying on the tradition of encouraging people to be in the final deal with plants in new and different

ways hell each march during the traditional peak of the azaleas season the best small flowers and tracks thousands of visitors proceeds from the event help support providence hospital immobile one of our goals is when the end of the show we once i left and we have several composer before showcase component where we actually have professional floors that are given a thing and then they do a floral interpretation of thing and that's always a big hit with although the spectators and what she goes through that's what we call our grand marquis which is the camp that houses all of our life size garden and landscape designs they've evolved a landscape thing on wednesday they won't name of virtue and that has worked out really when we get there from serious too on the very

thing that we use why one of the things that we left with are in the landmark the river landscape designer for landscape architects it is that we use with your own plants only flowers immature that they use well the criterion is that willie grow in our environment in alabama lore l willard drive all the materials excessive or they'd material think in the hall and one of the things that that makes it interesting for spectators is that they can actually relates to what's been produced here in grand marquis because they've either abstain or they know they can get it and it inspires people to

do things in their own yard if they may hire someone to do it or they may be inspired to do it themselves and that's what that's what we really want people to take away from here is to be inspired and dazzling display of cut flowers imported from around the world is another feature of the festival of flowers we just want to educate the public about our about flowers and waterways and decided that was to have an exhibit that would shove a flower from all over the world know the fall and three the world was their flowers from all over the world and ship they have distributors and they're shipped out overnight an area near florida next day and recently things a viable with the public may or may not be aware of they were trying to get up with a real appreciation of what it does a festival of flowers has joined with the celebration of low beals try centennial

to promote of unification project with an even broader scope than sam like length of the trail individuals businesses and neighborhoods to look at what grows well on our environment and landscape their businesses their homes and neighborhoods in such a wide that we have things blooming all year long the vessel flowers the providence vessel flowers story that five six years ago and this and i think it was sort of following in the footsteps of this as a trail phenomenon people even if people were coming to see the azaleas people realize gosh the bill is such a great place to guard you know we've got twelve months a garden whether you're from from january through the somber a while we take advantage of the progress thus or flower sort of

again with that idea in itself is very alliterative that's been disbanded fb facebook has been has been video tape copies of this program maybe purchased by calling one eight

hundred four six three eighty eight to five learn more about this and other programs from the album experience on the world wide web at tubby toby toby you dot om a tv dot org