Fryar's Topiary Garden - Bishopville, SC - Unique Topiaries

Fryar's Topiary Garden is located at 145 Broad Acres Road in Bishopville, South Carolina. Bishopville is located in Lee County in the northern part of the state. The Garden is developed, owned, and cared for by a man named Pearl Fryar. Fryar is an African-American who was born in 1940 and moved to Bishopville in 1975. While working at a factory there, he purchased a home on three acres of land. The Gardens began in 1984 as a personal project to win Garden of the Month in Fryar's community.

The early topiary pieces were cast-offs from a local nursery. Fryar himself was unaware of topiary as an art form. In the 1990s, Fryar did win the Garden of the Month. He and his gardens have been featured on the following networks and shows: CBS's Sunday Morning, Turner South's Blue Ribbon, HGTV's Garden Diary and PBS's Victory Garden. His work has been featured in Art in America, which is a monthly magazine that has been published since the early 1900s. In addition, Fryar's work has also been featured in The Oxford American. Fryar has also had a video documentary made that is called "A Man Named Pearl.''

Fryar's topiaries have been selected for museum exhibitions across the nation. His most famous ones have been featured at the American Visionary Art Museum, the South Carolina State Museum, and Spoleto Festival USA. Fryar is also a frequent speaker, and he has addressed audiences at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston as well as students at the Bishopville elementary school. In addition, Fryar is the artist-in-residence at Coker College. In 2006, Winthrop University, which is located in Rock Hill, South Carolina, awarded Fryar with the Medal of Honor in the Arts. Fryar was also commissioned to develop a garden at the State Museum in Columbia, South Carolina.

The Garden surrounds Fryar's brick ranch home. There are at least 40 different species of plants and trees located on the property. Topiary is a type of art that involves sculpting shrubbery and trees into various shapes, and it uses both abstract forms and real shapes. The Garden Conservancy is a national non-profit organization that is dedicated to preserving unique and significant gardens for aesthetics and education. Fryar's topiaries have been included as a preservation project so that his gardens can have a secure future. There are only 40 projects in this group. In September of 2009, Lindsey Kerr, who has her master's degree in historic preservation, was selected to pursue a twelve-week project researching Fryar's Topiary Gardens. Kerr's task is to document and research various methods and information about the Garden and Fryar's care thereof.

The lawn itself is also decorative because Fryar has planted flowers in lettering that he dug into the grass itself. There are three words: love, peace, and goodwill.

Fryar welcomes guests to his property Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10:00am to 4:00pm. There is no fee for admission; however, donations to assist in the care for the gardens are encouraged. The address of the property is prominent in the front yard, where the numbers 165 are topiaries.