Once you enter you drive up into an old fashion car courtyard complete with 3 towers and 4 old cannon bastions.
 |
| There are towers, cypress and 4 old cannon platforms surrounding the car courtyard |
We decided early on to follow as much of the old plan as we could figure out. We found an old sketch and photos of the courtyard showing pots and statues ringing the courtyard (and cannons of course). The original builders had poured 30 pedestals that were clearly meant for the statues. We decided pots were more to our liking and began the process of finding very large terracotta pots as well as getting some of the existing stone urns up onto their respective pedestals.
Over time we will need to add stone steps up to what we call the 4 overlooks. The original sketches had these as cannon bastions and we understand there WERE army surplus cannons in the 70's mounted which the local military based removed when private land owners were no longer allowed to own BIG guns. They make lovely platforms that overlook the year round creeks and meadows and we will turn them into seating areas with pergolas.
There is a flag pole and lovely riser in the center of the car court that you drive around. There was a way to could get water there so we dressed the area with pots....
 |
| The Car Court has a center pavillion and flagpole |
There were two large cisterns on either side of the driveway that were no longer watertight and storing water out in the open due to mosquitoes is completely out of the question nowadays. Our solution? Maybe small jetting fountains down in them that use a smallish solar pump which will let the squirts of water come up to make a nice sound . Possibly we can figure out how to light them at night. . Plan is the over-spray waters a few potted plants for those who pier over or want to go down the steps into them.
We ran drip around the car courtyard to water the pots and down through the drains to handle the new plantings outside the walls. We settled on box for the borders, boston ivy, hops and clematis for the walls. We also added heat tolerent crape myrtle and other flowering bushes. We planted honeysuckle where we thought we could control it so it could spill down the walls. The massive cypress are original and have weathered on for decades with little or no help from what they must consider the various interlopers to the castle. .
 |
| Sping Bloom amid old stone walls |
If you have towers you have ladders and views... and in our case the towers also go down underground and connect. Some connection tunnels are large enough to get through and others seem to be pre set up to have pipes and wires fed through them for a future plan long abandoned.
The huge walls of the car court form the start of the three acers of enclosed gardens. It feels like a safe ring of fortitude around our paradise.
 |
| 25 Foot walls surround 3 acres of hstoric gardens |