Cari-d Away to Callaway

 Every other year or so in December, we bundle ourselves up in multiple layers of our warmest woolies and drive up to Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Georgia for some winter wonderland fun at their Fantasy in Lights event.

 The resort starts putting up light displays throughout the park in September, and it takes until around Thanksgiving to install all 8 million lights.  After sundown, you pack up into open-air Jolly Trolleys and are driven through the park to  see all the displays.  I won't show you any of my pictures that I take at night because they never turn out, but you can see them on Callaway's website.  The two pictures above are ones I took of two of the displays the next morning on our drive.

our cottage

The resort has many options for lodging.  We usually get either a cottage or a villa lock-out (when someone rents a 3 bedroom villa but only needs two of the rooms, we rent the third at a significantly reduced rate).  This year our cottage overlooked part of the 10 mile bike trail.

Butterfly Conservatory

The morning following the light show, we have breakfast in either a country style restaurant or the new restaurant in their Lodge and Spa building, then we tour some of the garden sites.   There is the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower trail, the location of the Southern Victory Garden and our favorite, the Butterfly Conservatory.

Inside this glassed-in structure are literally thousands of butterflies - over 2700 the day we were there, according to the Butterfly Count board.  There are butterflies hatching in a display, and then once you walk into the humid tropical enclosure, you see them everywhere... flying, feeding, just hanging out.  It's a magical place.

ladybugs

We walk around in this lush indoor garden, looking all around at the butterflies that are on plants, feeding on fruit, walking around on benches and windows and even landing on people.  There are even hundreds of ladybugs, part of the garden's practice of using natural pest control methods instead of chemical pesticides.  Ladybugs LOVE aphids, so having them hatch out colonies of the little red and black buggies help to control the aphid population on the host and feed plants for the butterflies.  We do the same thing in our yard every year, too.

the hatching display

feeding tray

greens and cabbage

Next we moved on to the Victory Garden.  The resort employs 6 full time gardeners on the 7.5 acre plot. They grow veggies that are used in the in-park restaurants, and they also sell the excess to park guests.  Of course while we are there in the winter, all that's really growing are collards and cabbages, but my gardener's eye could fill in the blank spots that I'm sure come spring and summer are filled with all sorts of produce.  The park gardens also serves as a testing ground for new varieties, and also employs natural and 'green' growing practices to treat pests and diseases, should issues like that arise.

There is an herb garden as well as a sundial garden, and some really nice shady spots that I'm sure are welcome in the warmer weather.  They film some of the PBS Victory Garden tv show episodes from there.  We always say that 'next year, we should come back and see the park in the spring or fall when everything is blooming' but so far we haven't. I'm sure that when the azaleas and rhododendrons are in bloom the entire mountain is swathed in rosy pink and fuschia.

Jay on the victory garden porch

This is one of our favorite places to go, and I can heartily recommend it to anyone in need of something to get them in the Christmas spirit.  We've talked about spending Christmas there, treating ourselves to the spa and sipping cider by a roaring fire...Maybe next year will be the year we actually try out those bike trails and see actual wildflowers growing on the wildflower trail, and actual veggies in the veggie garden!