Pioneer Information
Born Julia Louise Bird in Mark, Louisiana, Landry graduated from St. Joseph’s Academy in Baton Rouge. After marrying Theodore E. Landry (1899-1980) in 1920, the couple moved to Brusly, Louisiana five years later, living at Cinclare Plantation, where they opened the Cottage Gardens nursery. She and her husband began practicing landscape design in the early 1930s, moving to Port Allen, Louisiana in 1934 and founding the Cottage Gardens landscape design firm. They became well known in the region for their rehabilitation of historic plantation gardens along the Mississippi River corridor. In 1941 the Landrys collaborated with Louisiana State University botanist Dr. Clair Alan Brown, conducting a survey of the gardens at St. James Refinery (also known as Le Petit Versailles) in Vacherie, Louisiana. From the 1950s to 1970s the Landrys rehabilitated gardens at Afton Villa in St. Francisville (now Afton Villa Gardens, Madewood Plantation in Napoleonville, and Oaklawn Manor in Franklin.
In addition to residential gardens, project work included educational and institutional properties, such as the Esso Standard Oil Refinery (1958, now Exxon Mobil) and Broadmoor Junior-Senior High School in Baton Rouge (1961). The Landrys also designed church grounds, often pro bono, including the St. Gabriel Catholic Church (1769) in St. Gabriel, Louisiana and the plaza of the Basilica de Esquipulas (1759) in Guatemala in 1964.
Landry was a founding member of the West Baton Rouge Garden and Civic Club. An authority on southern horticulture, she led workshops on floral arrangements, addressed the Louisiana State University’s Festival of Art (1960), and created arrangements for the West Baton Rouge Museum (1976). Landry passed away at the age of 85 in Port Allen and is buried in the Saint John the Baptist Catholic Church Cemetery in Brusly, Louisiana.
