Repairs, preservation needed for garden

Few of us know that there’s a small piece of neglected serenity at the corner of Blossom and Pickens Streets behind Patterson Hall and South Tower.

Brian Wolfe, a member of the Student Senate’s Environmental Affairs Committee, wants to preserve and fix up this park, known as the A.C. Moore Garden, and is looking for fellow Gamecocks to help.

“We’re trying to open up this park and let a bunch of light come in,” Wolfe said. “We’re going in to make it safe and manageable for landscaping.”

The third-year business management and real estate student said he’s wanted to start this project since he was a freshman, when he noticed the park’s bad condition.

“I go to the Horseshoe and I see all the people sitting around having a good time. When I walk through this garden, I see the potential for it to be used a lot and be a benefit for students here,” Wolfe said. “It’s not used as much as it could be.”

Wolfe considers the garden’s current state — overgrown bushes and all — to be a safety hazard for the women living in these dorms.

“We just want to make it more safe than it has been before,” said Kate Allison, the chairwoman for the committee and a third-year political science and environmental studies student.

USC Landscaping employees will also assist with the project, whose help Wolfe said has been extremely instrumental.

“By cleaning up the park, it’s a great way to give back to your campus a little bit,” Allison said. “It can be a great way to create another area for students to go away from the bustle of campus.”

Students will work to clean up the garden — rain or shine — on Nov. 18-20 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Volunteers can sign up for one-hour increments and will help with tasks like dragging wood to the chipper, trimming hedges and trees, removing trees and cleaning around the pond area.

Sign-ups will begin tomorrow, Monday and Tuesday at the front desk of the Student Life Center.

2 comments

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Thu Nov 12 2009 10:22

Wonderful! This is where my gf and I go to smoke pot! Clean that place up!

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Thu Nov 12 2009 07:27

Great project. Thanks Brian, Kate and the USC landscaping staff for taking leadership on this effort.

However, it just makes you wonder how a highly visible garden at a gateway to the university is virtually ignored, and allowed to fall into such disrepair. For years this has left an impression that the university doesn't care about how it looks to all of the people who drive by every day. And as you point out, it's actually a scary piece of land with student and public security being the big issue. How did this happen with such an heavily traveled, visible and readily manageable location?

If anyone has visited Glencairn Garden in Rock Hill, it's a great model for what this urban park, on a small scale, can be - with just a bit of thoughtful design, investment and stewardship. Again, thanks in advance to all of the volunteers who are working to create something positive.

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