Picture: Courtesy Carlisle Hashim

The Tour, “Secret Gardens of the Vieux Carre'” in the French Quarter of New Orleans included a courtyard on Royal Street, a “well-detailed double residence with attached three-story kitchens.”  It was built around 1833 for Paul LaCroix, a classic Creole-style building with a central passageway, arched ground floor openings, narrow wrought iron balconies and curved dormers.  Story has it that two brothers who had inherited the building were feuding and decided to split the building so they erected a wall.  The mother managed to scale both sides.

Picture Courtesy Carlisle Hashim

“Secret Gardens of the Vieux Carre’,  is hosted by the Patio Planters of the Vieux Carre’, a volunteer organization dedicated to the preservation and beautification of the French Quarter.  Formed by French Quarter residents as a garden club focused on sharing new plants, Patio Planters brought tropical and semi-tropical exotics to courtyards in the 1950’s.  Bromeliads and orchids grew with more traditional banana trees, oleander, althea and ginger.  Fig and other vines were espaliered on brick and masonry walls which replaced the last of the horizontal board fences from 1880.  Since 1946, Patio Planters has sponsored Caroling in Jackson Square in December.  All proceeds from the tour fund the Caroling event.

www.patioplanters.org

Picture Courtesy: Carlisle Hashim