Mobile Home Sales in Mulberry, SC

HODGES, S.C. —

Homeowners and tenants in the Mulberry Park community in Hodges say they've been given 30 days to find new homes.

It started when Elora Turner found a white slip on her door after 5 p.m. Thursday.

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"The notice said we had 30 days to vacate the premises and that they were only giving us 30 days because a few people down here actually own their homes, so that's why they were giving us such a long period of time, as they put it in their letter," said Elora Turner.

Just below, the notice said landlords would give until Sept. 15, a little longer than 30 days, if needed.

Turner has a family of five. She said she owns a mobile home in the community, but 30 days, even with an extension, isn't near the time she would need.

School for her three kids is starting next week and she said it's hard to find a place in the same area for her kids to go to school.

"I called all of the rental agencies," she said. "Most of them had already booked up. They said, 'It seems that there's a housing crisis.'"

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Turner said she and her neighbors are also upset with the way in which the situation was handled.

"It was a slap on the face that they taped it on my door and ran down the road. No one called no one. I've yet to have any verbal contact with anyone who's written these notices," said Barbra McGill, a resident for 13 years.

J and D Investments, the group that owns the property, said there had been problems over the years with vacancies.

A representative tells WYFF News 4 the community is closing down. The representative said properties are managed by Uptown Property Rentals. They said anyone who needs more than 30 days can work with the property management group and owners for a more realistic time frame.

But Turner and her neighbors are wondering how they'll be able to make a transition work.

"We've got to figure out something, and we need more time to do that," said Turner.

Few landscapes can top the picturesque rolling lavender hills of Provence, France, but many farms in the South offer an enchanting lavender experience sans plane ticket! While lavender is a drought-tolerant plant, it thrives in dryer conditions without pesky humidity. But that does not stop many Southern farmers from growing the beautiful, decorative, and calming plant. Lavender has many superpowers. It can aid anxiety and promote sleep; it also keeps bugs away and helps with hair loss.

The picking window is narrow each summer (typically just a few weeks in June and July) and changes from farm to farm and region to region, so check these farms to see where you can still pick, where to shop online, and where you should plan a road trip for next “u-pick” season.

This Tennessee farm offers lavender and lots more! Once owned by whiskey distiller Jack Daniel, this historic property now has a working farm, farm store, and bed and breakfast. Stay in the 1860s farmhouse or rent the entire romantic Lavender Cottage — both include a daily organic breakfast, lulling herbal scents, and friendly farm friends. If you’re just driving by, pop in the store for made-on-the-farm essential oils and soaps, as well as veggies, fresh bread, and meat.

An easy scenic drive from Nashville, Chattanooga, or Huntsville, this lavender farm is a destination on its own. The area is known for its distilleries, Civil War history, colonial houses, antiques, and natural beauty. Image: Mulberry Lavender Farm and B&B

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Lavender Wynde Farm is a small, family-owned herb farm near Huntsville, AL. Land-nourishing, sustainable agriculture techniques create a menu of botanical-driven essential oils, extractions, tinctures, and infusions. Visitors can book an appointment to walk the soothing rows of lavender plants, shop in person direct-from-farmer, or shop online from anywhere!

Farm owners Alice and Bill are truly a “mom and pop” sharing their little slice of Lookout Mountain heaven with you! They started Lookout Lavender to provide an escape from the stressful bustle of life. During the growing season, they open up their rolling fields to explorers and shoppers seeking the calming properties of lavender plants. “The Lav Shack” is an adorable storefront open on summer Saturdays, and they also host educational classes and events like the popular Lavender 101 Class.

We’ll pull up an Adirondack chair to this view any day! Image: Lookout Lavender via Facebook

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This Virginia lavender farm is also a winery, so we’re already intrigued. In addition to their “u-pick” season, White Oak Lavender Farm (the acronym WOLF became the winery name: The Purple WOLF) offers seasonal guided tours as well as farm animals, a life-size checkerboard, walking labyrinth, distillery, drying barn, and beautiful duck pond. You can also sign up for a lavender wreath- or wand-making class (one glass of wine included!).

Gigi is an undeniable lavender pro. She not only runs her own farm (available to visit by appointment only), but she also acts as a nursery that supplies thousands of lavender plants to other farms across the country. She grows 10 unique lavender plants and sells a variety of whimsical products, from aprons to lavender-filled stuffed unicorns.

“Phenomenal” is a heat- and humidity-tolerant lavender hybrid that can withstand winter. And deer don’t like to nosh this varietal as much as others! It’s perfect for the South and one of the 10 different lavender plants Gigi grows. Image: Gigi’s Lavender Farm

Kentucky is a popular place to grow lavender, and Big Root Farm is all about imparting its healing properties. During their open season, you can cut your own lavender bundles, walk the labyrinth, soak in nature, sip some lavender lemonade, shop the farm’s wares, or attend events from guided mediations to art workshops.

One SB writer just visited and covered this farm, but we have to talk about it more! The generations-spanning Woodstock Farm was started with just $600 in the 1920s. Today, a mother-daughter duo runs a carefully curated store, seasonal farm events, and a culinary subscription box service so popular that it’s waitlist-only. Woodstock is all about incorporating lavender into your bath AND your kitchen (hello, lavender syrup in your morning latte!).

Get on the email list for this farm’s fun events, cooking classes, and subscription box restock! Image: Woodstock Lavender Co. via Facebook

Larry and Stacie want to share their love of this special plant with the world through their growing kits, hand-crafted products, and farm visits. They invite lavender lovers and daytrippers alike to reset the ol’ nervous system amidst the peace of their farm. Until your visit, shop small-batch tinctures like pillow/linen spray and luxury dead sea bath salts here.

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Pack a picnic and a carload of friends and head to Twin Creeks Farm for their next u-pick season. Each ticketed day brings visitors, food trucks, and other local vendors for a lively lavender celebration. Twin Creeks products are popularly found in boutiques and farmers’ markets, and owner Michelle Ducworth is garnering media attention across the South.

The century-old farm near our darling Greenville, SC, was historically used for cattle but has recently added seven types and 7,000 lavender plants to the fields. Image: Twin Creeks Lavender via Facebook

This Carolina farm grows 8,000 lavender plants in three varieties and sells their products (and more) in The Mercantile gift shop nearby. The farm hosts events, weddings, yoga classes, distilling demonstrations, and art classes even after seasonal “u pick” days are over.

Here’s to the magical lavender plants we didn’t know could thrive throughout the sticky South. May you pick it, shop it, enjoy it, and even GROW it in the coming months.

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Two new developments are now planned or in the works for Fountain Inn: a 41-acre reimagined village community on the spot of the former Woodside Mill village site, along with a 53-acre subdivision dubbed Mulberry Estates in northern Fountain Inn off Bryson Drive.

The planned development projects would cover nearly one hundred acres — 94 acres, to be exact — and would serve as yet further evidence of the growing appeal of Fountain Inn for developers.

Citing Greenville County’s “booming job market” and Laurens County’s equally “growing job market and low unemployment rate,” the City of Fountain Inn is now seeking developers to submit proposals for the Woodside Village project. Meanwhile, Fountain Inn City Council has already given an initial go-ahead for the Mulberry Estates project off Bryson Drive.

Woodside Village project

The old site once occupied by Fountain Inn’s Woodside Mill has long stood vacant, overrun by weeds and patchy grass, a scar over the land where the mill once stood before its demolition in the early 2000s.

Now the city is looking to transform that land into the bustling village it once was.

The city officially put out a request for proposals for developers or development teams with the capacity to develop a residential and commercial tract.

With the city acting as facilitator, coordinator and main point of contact during the review of the proposals, the stated goal is to find a team with experience in “infill, affordable and workforce housing developments” to take over the project.

Any inquiries regarding the project are due by Feb. 8, while all proposals are due by noon on Feb. 26.

“The city requests that three double-sided printed copies of the proposal be submitted, as well as one electronic version,” the city noted in the request for proposal documents put out in mid January.

The planned development site consists of three parcels, two of which are owned by the city and one that is privately owned. The combined size of the city’s parcels is 28.8 areas, while the private parcel is 11.9 acres. The private parcel is included in the current planned development, although the city noted that the private property owner “will participate in the review of proposals and consider offers on the property before selling the property to anyone else,” according to city documents.

“Preferences will be given to firms or teams with experience on similar or related projects and designing and building redevelopment sites with a mixture of uses, unique architecture and inviting gathering spaces,” the city noted in request for proposal documents.

The old mill, which opened in 1898 and closed in the 1980s, was ultimately razed in 2002. Owned and operated by brothers A.J., C.E., R.L. and W.J. Graham, it was built with 5,000 spindles and grew to house 17,00 spindles in its heyday, producing cotton yarns and cloth. John T. Woodside purchased the mill from the Grahams in 1906. It was known as “among the best mills in the South,” according to Palmetto Pride.

Mulberry Estates subdivision

Fountain Inn City Council voted unanimously to approve the rezoning of four properties off Bryson Drive near the border with Simpsonville, a total of about 53 acres of wooded land set to become a new single-family subdivision called Mullberry Estates.

The development would consist of 169 single-family detached residential units with one access point on Bryson Drive.

“The project meets the future projections for residential growth in this area of the city,” noted city documents.

The project is spearheaded by Greenville-based civil engineering firm BlueWater Civil Design. The project’s engineer, Melanie Giles, spoke to City Council on the proposed rezoning.

Mullberry Estates would be built on both sides of Bryson Drive. The largest parcel of land, which consists of a little more than 41 acres, is already within city limits but lacks road access. The other three parcels are within unincorporated Greenville County. BlueWater Civil Design is seeking annexation in order to bring access and sewer connectivity to all tracts.

One concern, however, was a possible increase in traffic, which led to a traffic study on the development’s impact.

“It is noted that traffic patterns and operations at all of the intersections are likely influenced by traffic to and from the Bryson Elementary School, located just north of the site,” noted an executive summary of the traffic study from Ramey Kemp Associates, a Charlotte-based transportation consultancy firm.

Traffic is most frequent during child drop-off hours for the school, which can cause “minor delay during peak hours,” the study notes, but adds that “the site access on Bryson Drive should function adequately during peak hours.”

The study recommended no modifications to meet any increased traffic.

BlueWater Civil Design has a portfolio of notable projects, most recently the Camperdown development in downtown Greenville and Homewood Suites by Hilton in Greenville’s West End.

A few springs ago, my sons and their friends came home from a neighborhood walk with purple-stained fingers and faces. Assuming the worst, I had them take me to the source to make sure it wasn’t poisonous. Turns out we have native red mulberry trees throughout our urban Park Circle neighborhood. Ever since that spring, we look forward to our mulberry-foraging adventures. We always have grandiose ideas of making jam and pie, but instead we just eat them right off the trees with none left to spare.

In South Carolina, we have two species of mulberry trees, the native red mulberry, Morus rubra, and the cultivated white mulberry, Morus alba. The female trees of both varieties produce delectable fruit and have edible leaves (better as a tea than raw) found all throughout the Southeast and parts of the Midwest.

Interestingly, mulberry trees grow three unique shapes of leaves on the same plant: entire (a term for a no-lobe shaped leaf), mitten and lobed, all with serrations. The only other type of plant found here with multiple leaves is the sassafras tree, whose crushed leaves smell like root beer).

Red mulberry tree leaves have a rough top side with hair-like features on the underside. They thrive in partial shade in rich soil. On the other hand, white mulberry trees have shiny leaves and no hair-like features and thrive in poor soil often found in abandoned lots and sides of the road. Red mulberries produce purple-to-black fruit, whereas white mulberries produce white-to-red-to-purple fruit.

Mulberries are rich in fiber, vitamins K and C, iron, protein, calcium, magnesium and cancer-fighting antioxidants. With these berries being more nutritious than blueberries and raspberries, you’d think we’d have farms full of mulberry trees. In fact, South Carolina used to plant thousands of acres of mulberries until the late 1800s, and some are trying to bring the trees back into popularity.

Most see mulberry trees and their purple-staining fruit as a nuisance, but in the 19th century, their fruit was highly sought-after all throughout the country for many reasons. The white mulberry (native to China) was brought to America because silkworms prefer their fruits. Entrepreneurs hoped to establish silk production in America, but the costs were high and the industry failed. The trees, however, continued to spread because birds and other animals enjoyed the fruit.

Before commercial farms switched to cheap all-grain feed for livestock, mulberries were a prized food for hogs and chickens as were native persimmon and nut trees. It is said that mulberries gave a sultry sweetness to their meat.

Around 1813, a man in Columbia named Nicholas Herbemont crossed our native mulberry with the white mulberry to produce a tree named Hick’s ever-bearing mulberry variety. Herbemont wanted to create a mulberry that would produce fruit for a longer period of time and that was more useful to livestock production. Herbemont owned acres in the heart of Columbia, where the University of Columbia’s new law school now is. Not only did he cross the plants there, but he also housed many fruit-bearing trees and roses his wife cultivated. The Columbia hilltop was considered a horticulture paradise at that time.

Although mulberry trees are now something most try to get rid of, there is a push to bring them back into backyard gardens and onto farms where heritage livestock can be raised on heirloom mulberries. Until they make a comeback or until you plant one of your own (don’t plant it where the purple fruit stains will make you rethink your choices), do some urban foraging and enjoy the fruits of your bounty.

Toni Reale is the owner of Roadside Blooms, a unique plant, flower, crystal and fossil shop in Park Circle in North Charleston. It moves to a new location in June, 4991 Durant Ave., North Charleston. More: roadsidebloomsshop.com

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Until I Googled "mulberry" a few minutes ago, I actually didn't know what a mulberry was. And, to be frank, after a few minutes puzzling through the various black, red and white types of mulberry that are found throughout southern Europe, the Middle East, northern Africa and the Indian subcontinent, I'm still not sure I have a firm grasp on the fruit which, to me, look a lot like a plump blackberry.

Despite my ignorance, lately I've found myself drawn to Boodles Mulberry Gin, a rich, violet-hued liqueur that Boodles Proper British Gin proclaims is the first mulberry gin in the United States. As Tom Walker, a bartender in Brooklyn's Fresh Kills (and a so-called bartender advocate for the brand) puts it, Boodles Mulberry is a "kissing cousin" of sloe gin, which is a liqueur made from gin and sloe drupes. (A sloe is a small berry that grows wild in hedgerows all over England.) But while sloe gin gives a cocktail dark fruit flavors and a balance of sweet and tart, Boodles Mulberry is brighter, with an interesting flavor that balances ripe red raspberry notes against the gin's more typical botanicals.

Because of similarities with sloe gin, I started playing around with a sloe gin fizz, which is the first drink I think of when I think of the berry-infused liqueur. A sloe gin fizz is a simple drink that typically combines sloe gin, a London dry gin, lemon juice, simple syrup and club soda. Combining the ingredients, I find that Boodles Mulberry shines as I swap it in for sloe gin. It's fruity, not too sweet and delicious on these first few weeks of fall when the days are still fairly long and often warm.

"Boodles Mulberry plays well with citrus," Walker tells me, which leads me to see whether Boodles Mulberry can play a supporting role in a Tom Collins. Rather than two parts gin to one part lemon juice (and a teaspoon of simple syrup, topped with club soda), I use one part London dry gin and one part Boodles Mulberry. The mulberry liqueur gives the Tom Collins another dimension, a fruity element that works well.

After that, I figure, What the heck, and decide to see where else those Boodles Mulberry red fruit notes might work. Because I love a good Manhattan, which is typically two parts whiskey (typically rye) to one part sweet vermouth (with a few dashes of bitters), I use two parts rye to half part sweet vermouth and half Boodles Mulberry, along with a couple of dashes of Angostura Bitters. It's something new. Perhaps not something I'll do every day, but something worth trotting out every now and then.

New isn't necessarily better. But in the case of Boodles Mulberry, it does make for some interesting, delicious cocktails.

Mulberry gin fizz

Makes: 1 cocktail

2 ounces Boodles Mulberry Gin

1/2 ounce lemon juice

1 teaspoon simple syrup (optional)

Club soda

In a cocktail shaker filled with ice, shake the mulberry gin, lemon juice and simple syrup (if using); strain into a tall, ice-filled glass. Top with club soda.

Violet Collins

Makes: 1 cocktail

1 ounce London dry gin

1 ounce Boodles Mulberry Gin

1 ounce lemon juice

1 teaspoon simple syrup

Club soda

Lemon wedge

In a cocktail shaker filled with ice, shake the gin, mulberry gin, lemon juice and simple syrup. Strain over ice in a Collins glass; top with club soda. Garnish with a lemon wedge.

Mulberry Manhattan

Makes: 1 cocktail

2 ounces rye whiskey

1/2 ounce sweet vermouth

1/2 ounce Boodles Mulberry Gin

2 dashes Angostura Bitters

In a cocktail shaker filled with ice, stir ingredients, then strain into a rocks glass.