Land Preservation & Boykins Go Hand in Hand - TribPapers
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Land Preservation & Boykins Go Hand in Hand

Henry all dressed up for the Boykin Christmas Parade. Photo courtesy of Mary Palmer and Hugh Dargan.

Boykin, SC – In rural South Carolina, there is a small town well worth visiting just before Christmas. This year, the 26th annual Boykin Christmas Parade once again took place near Camden, S.C. This beloved tongue-in-check parade returned after a 2-year disruption due to COVID. It is a delightful Mardi Gras-like parade full of surprises every year. Apparently, at the first parade in 1991, Santa Claus arrived by parachute!

Dargan Landscape Architects and The Placemakers Academy receive a Silver award. Photo courtesy of Dargan Landscape Architects.
Dargan Landscape Architects and The Placemakers Academy receive a Silver award. Photo courtesy of Dargan Landscape Architects.

Over 50 floats participated, including some with unusual forms of transportation. The Maxie Branch Boys Band rode on a pontoon boat covered with Christmas greenery. There were  carriages carrying government dignitaries, such as Camden Mayor Alfred Mae Drakeford and South Carolina house and state representatives. As alligators are common in South Carolina, you could see a gator driving a motorcycle, drummers dancing and prancing as they marched forward, a decorated tree and farm equipment, and the much loved Fatback Queen and Court. The Fatback Queen seemed to love to dance in his or her sequined dress. The Camden Hunt participated. Visitors came from all over, including Florida, to whoop it up before Christmas in this rural area, perhaps tailgating with a large glass of eggnog.

This year, on December 18th, thanks to the efforts of Alice and Wayne Belger of Boykin Mills Farms, visitors and the local community could enjoy themselves, watching the colorful parade, which ended with a gospel concert at the lovely historic Swift Creek Baptist Church. The official South Carolina state dog, the much loved Boykin spaniel, walked in fanciful Christmas costumes with many owners—to honor the Boykin Rescue Group. The town of Boykin is the birthplace of the Boykin Spaniel, a chocolate Spaniel bred for hunting grouse, ducks, and partridges in the wetlands and fields nearby.

A Special Boykin Spaniel Called Henry

One young Boykin Spaniel participant in this year’s Christmas parade was Henry, a purebred in training, who is owned by Hugh and Mary Palmer Dargan. Hugh Dargan is a native South Carolinian and now a retired man of leisure in Camden as well as on his land grant farm, Cedarcrest, about 45 minutes away. The Dargans have recently left Asheville and purchased a home in Boykin, S.C. They continue to have a visible presence in Cashiers as well, having been there for over 30 years. Their office and citizen advocacy work on behalf of land stewardship in the Cashiers area continues.

The skills they learned while walking their beloved Spaniel Henry through the fields and wetlands reminded these architects how important land preservation is to all of us. They have found that by training Henry, they are more in touch with the land. It has reinforced land preservation concepts so badly needed in landscape architecture. The two, the Boykin Spaniel and land preservation, seem to go hand in hand.

The Boykin Spaniel is a medium-sized, affable, enthusiastic retriever known for his rich brown coat and floppy ears. It was first bred by S.C. hunters during the 1900s to work in the lakes and swamps of their native South Carolina. The web-toed Boykin can swim like seals. The American Kennel Club only recognized it as a breed in 2009. Henry has been learning field manners—no barking—to respond to hand signals, retrieve over long distances, and sit to both whistle upon flush and shot. Mary Palmer is a life member of the Boykin Spaniel Society and has competed in both upland and retriever hunt tests and field trials. This past July, Henry received the title of BSS (Boykin Spaniel Society) Intermediate Spaniel Retriever (IR). Mead, Henry’s 4-1/2-month-old brother, is learning how to bring a quail to hand and retrieve a tiny floating bird from the water. Both continue to train and compete for titles.

Dargan Landscape Architects Wins International Recognition

The prestigious International Gold Landscape Design Award went to Dargan Landscape Architects at their conference in Chicago this summer. The award was given for Ushuata, created for Judy and George Dixon in Cashiers. The estate sits on 12 acres of mountaintop with 280-degree views of western North Carolina. As Mary Palmer Dargen said after receiving the gold medal, “I’m over the moon! It means so much to me to have met this goal because it recognizes [an] extremely high achievement in a field with great competition. It is an international award, and it’s even more significant because of the broad reach and impact of this design project. Ushuata featured sustainable lifestyle techniques implemented on a large scale.”

In addition, the Dargans’ Placemakers Academy of Garden Design won the Garden Communicators International 2022 Silver Award, for a learning website and a special digital product. This academy is a highly creative way to encourage and show gardeners how to create the garden of their dreams on their own property.

Once a gardener enrolls in the online Placemaker Academy, they are provided with the tools to breathe new life into their outdoor garden space. They are shown, step by step, how to make their garden dreams a reality. They will receive a signed copy of Mary Palmer’s “Lifelong Landscape Design” and immediate access to her video lectures, as well as a Placemakers Garden Design Journal. The first day of class is Thursday, January 19th, 2023, from 12-1:30, and the meetings run on Thursdays until March 30th, 2023. Each week, a topic is chosen to help someone attain their dreams. These 90-minute sessions will start with a lecture and move into a more open forum for questions and discussion. All meetings are recorded, and recordings are available for life, so if someone needs to miss a class, it’s ok! If you think you would like to join in this adventure, complete information can be found at www.theplacemakersacademy.com