The Missouri Inn Bed and Breakfast offers upscale lodging, while other motels provide more modest rooms. One of Hartsville's biggest secrets lately uncovered is Kalmia Gardens, less than three miles outside town. Neglected for years, it was slowly rebuilt by George Sawyer, a botanist at Coker College. Today, it's in the process of becoming a showplace, with a boardwalk along Black Creek, trails, a pond and 150 varieties of day lilies. Bird watchers come from as far as Florida to see kites, pileated woodpeckers and prothonotary warblers.
Locals come for picnics and to walk their dogs.
In 1965, she gave it to Coker College in honor of her husband, David, founder of the seed company. Named for the mountain laurel that grows there, Kalmia Gardens is significant because it's on a 60-foot bluff facing north. Its cooler, wetter conditions allow plants not found on South Carolina's coastal plain to grow. Coker drama students perform A Midsummer's Night Dream by the pond. There is no better spot.