To see the azaleas, you’ll have to drive south, farther south even than Mobile, to a tiny town called Theodore, Alabama. There, wisteria laces the tops of ancient oaks, their limbs sleeved in resurrection ferns and dripping mosses. Palm trees peek from behind houses. Flower beds go Technicolor. It’s spring, and everything is waking up. Once you pass the signs for Theodore, billboards beckon you to venture even farther—only then will you reach Bellingrath Gardens & Home, one of the state’s most beautiful places.

Beyond the entrance, flashes of pink wink beneath the trees. Although Bellingrath welcomes visitors year-round, azalea season lights up the grounds like no other. Take any of the curving paths through the property’s 65 acres, and you’ll find thick walls of blossoms reaching up and over in every possible shade: magenta, coral, fuchsia, cotton candy, blush, salmon, ruby, and cream. Small blooms and large ones—more than 250,000—mingle in the hedges, their branches heavy with sun-dappled petals. They look as if they’ve always been there. The flowers go back nearly a century, and it’s a love story for the ages.

The Beginnings of Bellingrath

“Doctors will tell you that if you listen to a patient long enough, they’ll tell you exactly what’s wrong with them,” explains Tom McGehee, the director of Bellingrath Gardens & Home. Its namesake, Walter Bellingrath, was one of the first Coca-Cola bottlers in Alabama, and he was notoriously close with his money. So when he saw a property—which was once a sawmill operation and then a fishing camp—ideally situated along the Fowl River, he was hesitant to buy it. But he was also an avid fisherman and talked about it all the time. He went to his doctor to complain about an unrelated ailment, but the land was foremost on his mind. By the end of the appointment, the physician had a prescription: Buy the property. “Mr. Bellingrath’s doctor told him, ‘You have to learn to play,’ ” says McGehee with a twinkle in his eye, “and that doctor was my grandfather.”

McGehee has been with Bellingrath Gardens since 1994, and in the years since has become a fount of knowledge about the home, the land, and the stories of the people who once lived there. As he stands outside the house on a sunny day, he tells the tale of Bessie and Walter Bellingrath and the garden they loved.

“When Mr. Bellingrath purchased the land in 1917, he used it as a fishing retreat,” McGehee explains. However, Bessie, his wife, saw the potential in the grounds and set about establishing a garden. “She had a particular passion for azaleas,” he says, gesturing to the profusion of blooms along the pathway, “and she began planting old-growth shrubs, enlisting the help of architect George B. Rogers, who designed both the outdoor spaces and the home.”

While Walter always pinched pennies, Bessie’s generosity was legendary, especially with the people who worked there. “When one staff member told her he was saving his money to purchase a car, she gave him a check for the balance of the vehicle,” says McGehee. “And when the man approached her with plans to pay her back, Mrs. Bellingrath said, ‘That wasn’t a loan, you know.’ ”

A Flush of Flowers

During the Great Depression, Bessie added to the gardens in an unexpected way. The economic downturn loomed large, and the situation for many families in the Mobile area worsened. Bessie’s friends regularly shared with her the names of families who were having a difficult time, and she would visit them at their homes. While there, she would identify a plant—typically an azalea or camellia—in the yard and offer to buy it from the owners, who were astonished at the large sum of money she paid them.

Thus the gardens grew, and the flowers multiplied. In 1932, the Bellingraths opened the property to the public for the spring, and it became so popular that they decided a couple years later to allow visitors throughout the seasons.

Bessie’s health declined during the 1940s, and she died in 1943. After that, Walter turned all of his attention to the gardens and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on their upkeep. He dedicated the rest of his life to the landscape she’d loved. He once said, “These gardens were my wife’s dream, and I want to live to see that dream come true.”

A Landscape of Memories

Azaleas thrive here, but there is more to experience beyond the blossoms. Follow shaded flagstone paths past quiet nooks ringed with wrought iron benches and walls of greenery. Tour the home, where opulently decorated rooms are filled with antiques, fine furniture, and objets d’art. See the conservatory, the rose garden, the Great Lawn, and the Bayou Boardwalk that stretches out over the river and curves back toward land. A bridge extends across the man-made Mirror Lake, which has grassy banks bordered by broad sweeps of hot pink azaleas. It’s evident in even the smallest details that this place was built with the sustained dedication of many hands.

The gardens continued to be a comfort to Walter at the end of his life. After Bessie’s death, he lived the rest of his days on the river, conversing with visitors and marveling at the flowers opening beneath the oaks. Above a writing desk in the Bellingrath home hangs a print of the epitaph Walter wrote for his late wife’s gravestone. It reads, “I shall always think of you wandering through a lovely garden, like that which you fashioned with your own hands, where flowers never fade and no cold wind of sorrow blights our hopes and plans—and on your face, the peace of one whose whole life through, walked with God.”

More To Explore

You can tour the historic home and terrace as well as the expansive 65-acre grounds, where you’ll find azaleas in a multitude of hues—plus the Mermaid Fountain, a conservatory, a chapel, a gallery, and a boardwalk.