Opposites attract at Magnolia

Two students from the National Landscape School of Versailles in Paris (or L’Ecole Nationale Superieure du Paysage) are in the midst of a summer internship at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens in West Ashley.
Magnolia Plantation, handed down by Draytons and not by Louis’s, features dank,  swamp-moistened, moss-draped gardens, where pools of water wrap around the husky trunks of trees and the air is thickened by the ever-present hotness of the Lowcountry.
In the morning and afternoon, Sophie Bertrand and Ana Morales work the gardens of the plantation house with staff members, leaving them time in the middle of the day to tour gardens in and around Charleston and the South.
This is the fourth year Magnolia has welcomed French students through an exchange program run by the French Heritage Society of Paris and New York. A local organization, Alliance Francaise in Charleston, also adds its assistance.
Magnolia’s executive director Tom Johnson praises the student swap program, including N.C. State student Dana Reynolds this year. You can follow her internship at frenchgardenadventure.blogspot.fr.
“We enjoy working with the French students because having them here matches our long-term mission to use horticulture to bridge the gap between Europe and America,” said Johnson.
Bertrand, a small town girl from central France, plans to design gardens for an urban design company or alongside architects. Parisian Morales wishes to start her own landscape design company.