Kalmia Gardens of Coker College

Kalmia Gardens of Coker College, 1624 W. Carolina Ave., were developed in the 1930s on the site of the early 19th-century plantation of Thomas E. Hart. The gardens' natural setting can be explored by walking trails through a black-water swamp forest; laurel thickets; a beech bluff; and pine, oak and holly uplands. Azaleas and camellias also bloom in the gardens' 35 acres. On the bluffs of Black Creek, the gardens are particularly lovely in May, when the mountain laurels are in bloom.