"Gardening is how I relax. It's another form 

of creating and playing with colors." 
—Oscar de la Renta

The Garden of Fragrance in Forsyth Park

In 1908, a native of Paris named Georges H. Bignault was sent by the government of France to the United States to study the cultivation of Sea Island cotton in nearby Beaufort, South Carolina.

After he stepped off a ship in the Savannah harbor, he liked what he found and decided to make the city his home. Having studied horticultural science and landscape architecture in Paris, Algiers, and Madagascar, Mr. Bignault became a vital landscape architect and gardener in Savannah.

At first, he exclusively served the city's wealthy, many of whom demanded massive landscaping projects for their large private estates. Much later, Bignault became the landscape architect for the Savannah Park and Tree Commission. In that capacity, he served the citizens of Savannah, helping to redesign most of the city's beautiful twenty-four squares and many of its plentiful parks.

Bignault was a true artist, and his work was essential to the beautification of Savannah, particularly in the first half of the twentieth century. He ran nurseries with his sons and designed the Chatham Crescent suburb for Harvey Granger, a successful local builder of largescale elite mansions in Savannah.

Thanks to Granger's marketing prowess, Chatham Crescent — "The most desirable spot in the United States for the erection of a winter home" — had become a playground for wealthy New England families, vacationing Northern industrialists, as well as affluent Southern magnates to establish second estates.

A consummate salesman, Harvey Granger produced a 50-page booklet in 1911 entitled The Playground of America that he gifted to his prospective customers. The booklet bragged about the elite families who established their winter homes in Savannah, including the Vanderbilts and the Goulds.

Naturally, but typically — this being the Old South — the booklet also offered an assurance that certain building restrictions would apply, to include: "No property is to be sold, rented or otherwise disposed of to any person not of the white or Caucasian race." Racial discrimination was a reality of the day.

Still, the booklet is a historical document marking the importance of Savannah as a city uniquely attractive to the influential American elite. It included a discussion of the prestigious Savannah Golf Club. It bragged that Savannah was the Mecca for automobile racing with its recent International Grand Prize Races of 1908 and 1910 and the prestigious Vanderbilt Cup auto race — and, perhaps more importantly, Savannah offered the very first Stock Car Races in America!  

Harvey's booklet also discussed the plentiful hunting via the Chatham Hunt Club. It delighted in the local fishing — available in both fresh water and saltwater varieties. And, of course, there were significant historic landmarks to see in Savannah, certain to impress friends and visitors then, just as today! Oh, and never forget the beauty of the trees you'll enjoy on your property — the massive live oaks, the palmetto, the magnolia, the crepe myrtle, and the Spanish bayonet with its giant pendants of moss!

In the 1950s, after becoming the chief architect for the Savannah Park and Tree Commission, Georges Bignault designed the Fragrant Garden for the Blind in Forsyth Park for the Savannah Garden Club. Like Oscar de la Renta, Mr. Bignault enjoyed creating and playing in his gardens until his death at age 77. 

I enjoyed my time in Forsyth Park, painting en Plein air, what has now been named The Garden of Fragrance. Be sure to take your time strolling through this beautiful park and this wonderful garden.