Carolina Wordless Wednesday: Road Sign

Retrospective on South Carolina's Cypress Gardens

We love Cypress Gardens in Moncks Corner, South Carolina. No! It is NOT like the one in Florida with the fancy water shows and thrilling rides, but it suits our family perfectly! Cypress Gardens is much smaller, not showy, less tourista! You can find it on the outskirts of the sleepy little town of Moncks Corner, which also hosts a fantastic seafood restaurant called Gilligan's, an old Charleston favorite which preceded the television show by decades, and a Trappist monastery. In my childhood, we spent a few weeks every summer at Short Stay, a Navy recreation camp on a man-made lake near Moncks Corner.

We first visited this lovely blackwater swamp in June 2004 on our first trip to Manning to see my parents and their new home. That was when the old "church" made out of wood and stucco still stood, a relic of the movie set of The Patriot. (Several movies were filmed here: The Swamp Thing and The Notebook). Anyway, the first time my parents went here my mother exclaimed, "Oh, look at that old Spanish mission!" She started snapping photographs left and right until they past it and realized it was only a facade! Unfortunately, the "church" is no mas for a severe thunderstorm blew it down. All that is left are some pylons sticking out of the water. However, you can find other props from the set like the eight portable cypress tree trunks and the under-swamp bridge for the scenes of horses walking through the swamp (which is next to impossible to do in real life). The other interesting trick was that the film crew lowered the level of water (easily done through a dam that prevents the swamp from drying out every summer) to make the Spanish Mission island bigger.

I was going to launch into a history lesson, but you can find a much better version in this fifteen-minute online video.

David was almost twelve and Pamela fifteen on our first visit. I remember him sighing and reflecting, "I could live here," during the boat ride on the swamp. The water is clean even though it looks black as ink. When the needles fall off the cypress trees, they sink to the bottom and slowly release tannins (used to tan leather, which we studied in The Brendan Voyage and Amos Fortune, Free Man). The bottom of the shallow swamp is black, and that color gets reflected off the surface. Look carefully in the second photo and you will see an alligator gliding in front of us!



The first friend we made was Woody, the wood duck. He lived in the Butterfly House. We were saddened by the news of his death in 2007, marked by this memorial stone. On our most recent visit with my sister-in-law, we were delighted to meet a juvenile wood duck, whose lost his mother when a car ran over her! It will be exciting to see him mature on our next visits!

The Original Woody


Woody the Younger


In July 2007, we took our nephew Antonio (Patty's son) to Cypress Gardens and he loved it, too! Two weeks ago, we met Tammy's high school friend Lisa (and her husband Johnny and baby girl Leilani). Patty and Javier had their chance on Tuesday, but a light shower during the swamp tour prevented me from filming or taking pictures. Below is a video of photographs and film clips of our swamp tours.


We were fortunate to have visited before the crocodiles made their curtain call! The county can no longer afford to keep the crocs in style, so they had to find a new home for them. Johnny enjoyed hanging out with the crocs, which reminded him of his school mascot--not some goon in a suit--a real live crocodile that they kept well-fed. When we brought Patty and Javier, the closed doors to the reptile exhibit saddened me, but I did not shed any crocodile tears . . .

Here are some photobuckets organized by theme!
Butterflies Everywhere!

Flora and Fauna

Topiary Triumph

Monday was a long day for Pamela: after we toured the peach orchard, country store, and packing plant, we stopped at a fascinating topiary garden and Barnes and Nobles before heading home.



In the rural town of Bishopville, home of the Cotton Museum and stop along the cotton trail, is Pearl Fryar's topiary garden, featured in Smithstonian Magazine. A documentary called A Man Named Pearl, due out in December 2008, explores the man behind the garden. It all started in 1984 when he cut up a few bushes around the front door of the first home he ever owned. Then, he formed his street address with plant cuttings. The next thing you know he was filling his yard with trees and bushes cut into abstract shapes. He filled his art with words like love, peace, and goodwill and created metal art with messages like hate hurts, love unity, and faith.

Pearl set his mind on winning Yard of the Month by the local garden club, and he did three times! Winthrop University awarded him with a 2006 Medal in the Arts for his work as a self-taught topiary artist and his impact on his community. Many media outlets and travel websites have featured his topiary garden, so we expect some sort of commercialization at the site. We drove up to the garden surrounding his brick home in a residential neighborhood. There are no signs nor gift shops filled with tacky stuff for sale. The hours are dawn to dusk and, if you are lucky, you will catch him at work and get the chance to chat with Pearl. We were not that lucky! I just love stories like his and enjoy meeting inspiring people.





The photograph below cracked me up! When he was a boy, David loved collecting sticks. Whenever we moved, he would sort through his stick collection and keep the best ones. He even brought a few sticks with him on our last move to South Carolina. I can see that old habits die hard!



Pamela was tuckered out and, even though she wanted to go, she hung in there without any major meltdowns. About two minutes into the video, she worked her way to a little field behind the garden, flung out her hands, and said, "Here I am!" The focus of my video was interacting with Pamela.