Jim Gibbs — owner, designer, and developer of Gibbs Gardens in Ballground Georgia -— is at it again. He’s creating another new garden of perennials and annuals with nature’s color palette at the heart of his design, Le Jardin – Color Garden.

“Visitors to our gardens love color, so I’m planting a very special new color garden just for them,” he said.

Gibbs started planning and planting his new serpentine flower beds in 2021, adding more combinations of perennials and annuals, new colors, plant sizes and shapes to create hundreds of singular artistic arrangements within the beds. This spring he added three additional beds to the five now blooming in his color garden. The result: even more shades of colorful plantings for July through mid-September.

Colorful plants added this year include:

Coleus, a family of shade plants with bright colored—often red and green—leaves.
Egyptian star cluster pentas, a perennial native to Africa and Yemen.
African bush daisy, a flowering plant in the sunflower family. Native to Africa.
Obedient plant, also called lion’s heart—may also be found in Lady Bird Johnson’s Texas Wildflower Center.
Firecracker flower can be annual or perennial depending upon location. Native to India and Sri Lanka, this heat-loving plant grows about 3-feet tall.
New Guinea impatiens with flower colors in shades of orange, pink, red, white and purple. Its blooms are similar to but larger than those of common impatiens.
Purple Heart, a spiderwort native to northern Mexico, is an annual known for its violet flowers and purple leaves.
Scarlet sage salvia was chosen for its bright red blooms. This perennial, native to Central America, is an annual in cooler climates.

A Cool Place to Visit

Gibbs Gardens is a cool place to visit—even in summer. Hundreds of natural, deep springs supply two large streams as they wind through the gardens, bringing cool, fresh water to the many ponds, waterfalls and fountains throughout the Valley Gardens.

Jim Gibbs calls it nature’s version of air conditioning. “Our fresh spring water comes out of the ground at about 63 degrees and circulates in our streams throughout the gardens. The springs feed 19 waterfalls throughout the gardens, helping to lower temperatures and cool the air in the Valley Gardens from morning until early afternoon.”

In his book, “Gibbs Gardens, Reflections on a Gardening Life,” Gibbs recalls his first visit to the Yellow Creek Road property, “I saw the canopy of Mountain Laurel, hundreds of ferns and then the abundant springs—more valuable than gold. At that moment I knew this was the place where I would build the garden I had dreamed about for years.”

A World-Class Garden Experience

Honored with the National Garden Clubs’ Award of Excellence, Gibbs Gardens has been named one of the “Thirteen Best Botanical Gardens in America,” “2020 Best American Botanical Gardens,” one of the “World’s 10 Best Places to See Daffodils,” and a top garden in Georgia by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Explore Georgia.

(Photos courtesy of Gibbs Gardens)