Happy National Garden Week

Happy National Garden Week! This annual celebration is all about uniting communities around green spaces and horticultural knowledge. To celebrate, we are thrilled to spotlight a remarkable, eco-friendly collaboration right here at home: the CCU Nature Center Garden Project in Huntington Beach State Park.

Coastal Carolina University’s Sustainability and Community Resilience class researched and created a Team Community Project Plan to build water-compatible structures to display SC native plants. This unique design enables the gardens to float when water rises and floods the area near the HBSP Nature Center. These floating gardens attract bees and other pollinators, feed local birds, and provide a vital habitat for coastal creatures—all while protecting the native plants from brackish saltwater intrusion from the marsh.

This project was fully funded by grants from the SC Native Plant Society. FoHBSP served as the financial conduit and sponsor, ensuring these funds directly benefited the park's conservation and education efforts.

This creative and meaningful project was both designed and built by the CCU students, under the

guidance of FoHBSP and Nature Center staff. The next time you visit Huntington Beach State Park, be sure to stop by the Nature Center to check out these incredible floating gardens in action and see the hard work of these brilliant CCU students and our FoHBSP volunteers!