Tour

The tour starts and ends at 80 Broad Street which is Washington Square Park, next to City Hall. It covers part of the original walled city and beyond with peeks into gardens along the way. This tour follows one of the original routes in the 1st guidebook issued by the city for tour guides (it’s from my mom’s tour guidebook). You will learn how the city came about – hint it had to do with power and money. We will also cover different styles of architecture, where the influences came from and stories about the people that built and lived in these historic homes. Along the way we will also see different kinds of plants and how they came to Charleston and the connection with other major port cities in America and Europe.

For example did you know...

The Poinsettia has a Charleston connection
Many Physicians were also amateur Botanists and greatly influenced the plants we know today
Before we had heat and air conditioning within our homes only the wealthy could afford plants
The first Garden open to the public in America is here in Charleston
Charleston was a major port city (still is) and we traded plants with other major cities during the 1700s and 1800s in America and Europe
Several women in Charleston featured prominently with other plant traders in the 1700 and 1800s
The first tea planted in America was here in Charleston
Charleston has a Rose that was locally cultivated which became the hit of the French Court
Indigenous people used many of our native plants for medicinal purposes
The oldest landscaped garden in America is here in Charleston
Some of the plants, trees and shrubs that many people associate with the South are in fact from the Far East i.e. China and Japan
Without the enslaved people brought to Charleston, primarily from the West Coast of Africa, the Wealth and Rice culture that Charleston and the Lowcountry was built on would not exist

Tour

Ryans Slave Mart

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