Creole Garden Design in New Orleans Rewrites Plantation Aesthetics

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Creole Garden Design in New Orleans Rewrites Plantation Aesthetics
a green yard with trees and a building in the background
European gardens were most ornamental, often a display of wealth, being that sustenance was maintained purchasing of goods, not creation.
a red flower with green leaves in the background
Hibiscus plants. Often used as a drink, medicine, and for countless other uses by the Creole diaspora.

Creole garden design in New Orleans challenges colonial landscapes and reclaims cultural narratives through plants, layout, and meaning.

In New Orleans, a quiet but radical transformation is taking root in the soil, led by Creole American garden design. These landscapes do more than bloom beautifully; they subvert the visual language of the antebellum South and alter long-standing narratives about landscape architecture.

The recent burning of the Nottoway plantation has sparked renewed conversation in regards to the deep cut left by slavery and colonization in the United States.

The Nottoway Plantation was one of the largest remaining antebellum homes in the South. Dukas / Universal Images Group via Getty Images file

Historically, plantation gardens were symbols of dominance—organized, ornamental, and meant to impress. But today, designers from Creole backgrounds are reimagining these spaces to center healing, ancestry, and resistance.

Instead of European symmetry, Creole gardens often embrace organic flow. Sugarcane, Okra( Of the Hibiscus plant), Collards, and other culturally resonant plants replace the ornamental boxwoods of old. Layouts reference spiritual practices, memory, and community—sometimes even drawing from Hoodoo cosmology, as depicted in Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners,” a spiritual practice unique to America, not to be confused with Voodoo, which is of African origin. This informal spatial tradition meticulously crafts the unique identity of the Black American rural South.


Hibiscus garden

The recent shift

Post-pandemic, the conversation in the United States has shifted towards the idea of a truly circular economy. The premise of a circular economy sounds wonderful in practice, but one has to wonder: Is this truly possible in a country that gained wealth through the exploitation of free labor and the hoarding of resources in excess?

Organizations such as Sankofa, a community development corporation, are leading this push in New Orleans. The organizations goal is to goal is to transform 40 acres of land into the Sankofa Vegetable Farm, a collective of vacant and blighted properties throughout the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans by 2026.

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