The Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden is a three-acre garden with a purpose. Its development is a story of plants, sculpture, community, hard work, and inspiration. Self-taught and armed with a hedge trimmer, Fryar worked for over twenty years to create and maintain remarkable and dazzling topiaries, often grown from plants salvaged from a local nursery. The Conservancy works with Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden, Inc. to help care for and preserve this garden for the education and motivation of visitors from Bishopville and around the world.

www.pearlfryar.com

Signature magazine, May - Aug 2012, A Place for the Spirit

Download a PDF of the visitor's brochure to the garden, including a garden map and historical timeline.

Watch a Martha Stewart Show feature on the Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden, which aired on May 12, 2010.

For information on the documentary film A Man Named Pearl, including an online order form, click here.

Read the Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden Vision and Case Statement.

1984: Using a gas-powered hedge trimmer and salvaged plants, Pearl Fryar begins his topiary garden on three acres surrounding his suburban house in Bishopville, South Carolina. Working 12-hour shifts at the factory where he's employed, this self-taught topiary artist would sometimes work through the night creating what will eventually become over 150 topiaries of extraordinary shapes and sizes.

1990: Television stations begin to feature Fryar's plant carvings of the words, "Love, Peace and Goodwill" and eventually feature Fryar and his entire garden. People start driving up from as far as Atlanta on Sundays to see Fryar at work.

1991: The end of his road is expanded as a turn-around for tour buses and Fryar's garden becomes a destination point for visitors from all points of the globe.

1995: Pearl Fryar receives a commission to create a topiary for the State Museum in Columbia.

1997: Fryar is invited to participate in a site-specific public sculpture exhibition in Charleston, for Spoleto USA, and is featured in Art in America magazine. Since then he has been featured in Garden Design, Fine Gardening, Charleston magazine and The New York Times.

2005: The New York Times refers to Fryar's work as one of "towering ambition" and Fryar appears on CBS Sunday Morning.

2006: Fryar receives the Winthrop University Medal of Honor for significant contribution to the arts.

2006: A documentary about Pearl Fryar and his garden, "A Man Named Pearl," wins the Crystal Heart Award at the Heartland Film Festival in Indianapolis and the Audience Choice Award at the Salem Film Festival in Oregon.

2007: The Garden Conservancy helps to create and incorporate the Friends of Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden, whose mission is to help support the garden and its eventual transition into a public institution.

2008: "A Man Named Pearl" wins second Audience Choice Award at the Salem Film Festival in Oregon.

2009: The Friends of Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden and the Garden Conservancy enlist Lindsey Kerr of Athens, Georgia, for a 12-week internship to document maintenance practices in the garden and collect and organize archival material relevant to its history.

2010: In January, Lindsey Kerr is hired in new position as fulltime Project Manager at the garden. May 12: The Martha Stewart Show features a visit to the Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden.

Open
Open Tuesday through Saturday, year round

Hours

10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Admission and Tours
Donations are welcome to help support the garden.

Parking
On-street parking

Directions
The garden is located at 145 Broad Acres Road, Bishopville, SC, 29010. Look for the number 165 (the former house number) spelled out in the front yard.

For directions and additional information, visit the Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden website.