The Patio Planters of the Vieux Carre, was formed by French Quarter residents in 1946 as a garden club—when the Quarter had a lot more permanent residents—unlike today, when many Vieux Carre properties are owned by out-of-town owners who don’t live in the city full-time. The garden club back then was focused on sharing new plants. Over the years, though, the group encouraged tropical and semi-tropical exotics in courtyards. Bromeliads and orchids grew with more traditional banana trees, oleander, althea and ginger. Fig and other vines were esparliered on brick and masonry walls, which replaced the last of the horizontal board fences from the 1880s. Patio Planters is a volunteer-based organization also known for sponsoring Caroling in Jackson Square; it will collaborate with French Quarter homeowners in the decades-long tradition of opening up the beautiful private gardens and courtyards owned by local Vieux Carre residents, that are not generally accessible to the public.