THE HARD-UP HARD TIMES HARDSCAPE

Anne K Moore December 31, 2009
Photographs by Anne K Moore

I will bet that there are very few landscape focal points significant enough that they will halt you as you walk or ride past.  There is one, on Corley Mill Road outside Lexington, South Carolina, that has been doing just that.  It is a new fountain feature in front of the Bowers Landscape and Irrigation Company.

Hal Bowers, the owner, President, and chief landscape designer, has combined his hobby of restoring old jeeps along with using found objects as art.  The result is a fountain that has stopped cars, turned people around, and even had police called to view the “accident”.

This accident, though, has been carefully planned and executed with underground water pipes and modern day know-how.  It features an old farm water tower, tipped and pouring water onto the jeep that appears to have just run into it.

Hal Bowers has always had a life in horticulture.  From the time he played in the dirt at his father’s nursery back in the day until this day, he has nurtured a love of all things green.  His ornamental horticulture degree from Clemson University validates his knowledge. 

I worked for Hal for nine years and saw his designs come to life.  One day he came in with a piece of cardboard he had torn from a box.  On it, he had sketched three designs, side by side.  He had run out of paper while visiting three neighbors who were looking for backyard landscaping.

Not only does he design and build award-winning landscapes, often as not his sense of humor shows up in his booth at the Carolina Classic Home & Garden Show and at his home and place of business.

The fountain featured here is totally “green”.  Anything that might pollute, like the engine and transmission, have been pulled from the Jeep.

By the way, I had that piece of cardboard framed and hung on Hal’s office wall.  All three neighbors bought his landscapes.  Who says you cannot have fun with your landscape?  Not me and surely not Hal Bowers.

Carolina Classic Home & Garden Show
March 12 - 14, 2010 South Carolina State Fairgrounds
Bowers Landscape & Irrigation (803) 957-4419

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