Gibbs Gardens

Wednesday 25 October
Today, the four of us went to the amazing Gibbs Gardens set in the mountains of northern Georgia, near Ball Ground, an hours drive north of Atlanta. The gardens are the brainchild of Jim Gibbs, retired president and founder of Gibbs Landscaping Company, one of Atlanta’s leading landscape companies for more than 40 years. He began his career after graduating from the University of Georgia in 1965 with a B.S. degree and a major in horticulture and a minor in landscape architecture. He was a founding member of the Atlanta Botanical Garden. He came from a family of gardeners, his two grandmothers and one of his great aunts were avid gardeners. Gibbs traveled widely over a period of 15 years, viewing gardens of different styles, before beginning to build his dream. The gardens are composed of 16 gardens including 3 feature gardens - the Manor House Gardens, a large Japanese garden and Waterlily Gardens. The autumn colours were simply glorious. When we first arrived at the gardens, it was somewhat overcast, though still warm, but gradually the clouds broke up and gave way to some sunshine. It was a wonderful day.
In the evening, we all went out for my belated birthday dinner, which we had saved until Laura was with us. (See extras) We went to a restaurant called the Optimist in Atlanta, which features seafood. Jen and Jason had gone there for Jason’s birthday back in August. The food and the service was really excellent - we each chose something different, and we were all happy with our choices. Our only criticism was it is one of those places with rather sharp acoustics, so it was rather noisy, making it a bit difficult for Roger to hear, being at the end of the table.
Step count: 10,872