Hatcher Garden and Woodland Preserve

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hatcher Garden and Woodland Preserve is a 10-acre public garden located in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

[edit] History

in 1969, Harold and Josephine Hatcher retired to Spartanburg, South Carolina and began developing the land behind their home on Briarwood Road. Over the next thirty years they acquired property totaling 10 acres. Much of the land was in ruin: erosion from the former cotton fields had robbed the soil of its nutrients. Trash and weeds covered the ground.

The Hatchers began working and amending the soil. They filled in the eroded lands, built paths and ponds, and planted thousands of trees, shrubs and flowers.

The Hatchers were not wealthy landowners. Limited in resources, but not in creative vision, they raised money for their projects by buying and self-renovating adjacent properties for rental income. When they chose to give the Garden to a local Foundation - and thus to the Spartanburg community in perpetuity - what they gave was their life savings.