Henrietta Huff Camellia Walk at Belin Garden

Facility Address	4182 Highway 17 Business Murrells Inlet, SC 29576
Hours of Operation	Summer: 7:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m. Winter: 7:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Contact	Mr. Michael Speranzella
Phone	(843) 798-1090
Email	mike.speranzella@sccoast.net

About the Gardens

In 1999 the Family Life Center (FLC) was completed at Belin Memorial United Methodist Church (UMC). In March of 2000 a group of church members met and some gardeners in that group, led by Janet and Neil McEachren and Henrietta Huff, formed the Belin Senior Fellowship (BSF) which would later become the Belin Gardeners. Their first task was to protect the FLC foundation plantings that were threatened by roof runoff as there were no gutters on the FLC. Donations and fund raisers by the BSF in early to mid-2001 raised enough funds to install the much-needed gutters. The BSF gardeners then began addressing the space between the FLC parking lot and the historic Belin Cemetery, where the earliest graves date to 1822 and the Rev. James L. Belin (1788 – 1859) is buried. While this area had many magnificent live oak trees and pines, much of it was either barren or covered with weeds, vines, and debris from the FLC construction. The BSF saw this as an opportunity to develop a garden that would enhance the FLC and the cemetery, so thus began the greater vision of the Belin Garden for Meditation and Remembrance. The weeds, vines and debris were cleared, and Senior Pastor Harold Lewis provided several loads of Georgetown County mulch. Members of the BSF, now the Belin Gardeners, and other church members brought plants from their own gardens such as liriope, mondo grass, day lilies, iris, amaryllis, shasta daisies, evening prime rose, hollies, crepe myrtles, and hydrangeas. Thus a garden was born, and these same plants or their ancestor plants can be seen in the Belin Garden today. The garden continued to grow with the addition of holly ferns, roses, boxwoods, azaleas, lantana, obedient plant, bottle brush, sego palms, confederate rose, and, of course, camellias. In addition to the perennials there are annuals throughout the year and countless planters with all variety of plants throughout the garden. Of course the magnificent oaks and pines from past generations remain to provide the shade required by many of the plants. The Belin Garden was dedicated in 2006 but is always evolving under the leadership of the same Henrietta Huff who was instrumental in starting the garden in 2001. She directs a team of about 12 church volunteers who maintain the garden by weeding, planting, pruning, applying pine straw, and relocating unhappy plants. The volunteers also maintain the mulch pathways that weave their way through the garden. The church maintenance team helps with any “heavy lifting” tasks and irrigation.

In the fall of 2023, the gardeners were encouraged to submit an application for the Belin Garden to become one of the American Camellia Trail Gardens. The garden at that time had about 70 camellias but only three were identified by cultivar. Some members of the Grand Strand Camellia Society began working with the Belin Gardeners to identify the cultivars in the garden starting in early November 2023 when the first sasanquas started blooming. Those sasanquas were started as cuttings from her home camellias by Mrs. Huff and planted by her many years ago. Through the identification assistance and the addition of more than 60 fully identified camellias there are now 135 plants with almost 100 identified cultivars, about 80 being unique, found in the Henrietta Huff Camellia Walk at Belin Garden. While most of the camellias in the Camellia Walk are found in the Belin Garden itself, some are in the adjacent Belin Cemetery, the adjacent St. John’s Outdoor Chapel, and outside the Belin Creative Learning Center.

The Belin (pronounced Blain) Garden is located on the campus of Belin Memorial United Methodist Church (UMC) in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina. The congregation was founded in 1925 when a chapel from Oatland Plantation near Pawleys Island, SC was dismantled and rebuilt along the inlet near the Rev. Belin’s 1853 Mission House. While the garden is relatively new, started in 2001, it is surrounded by history and the ground it stands on is historically significant. Belin Memorial is named after the Reverend James Lynch Belin (1788 – 1859) who is buried in the Belin Cemetery, which is adjacent to the garden and where some of the camellias and many magnificent moss draped live oaks are located. The Rev. Belin’s family of French Huguenots settled in Charlestown (Charleston) SC but later moved to Georgetown County seeking more opportunity in the fertile rice fields along the Waccamaw River where the Rev. Belin was born. His family owned Wachesaw Plantation which stretched from the Waccamaw River to the Atlantic Ocean, and the Belin Garden is on that land. They called their property by the inlet Cedar Hill and his family had a seaside estate there. The home, which pre-dated the Revolutionary War, is gone now but it is believed it wasn’t far from where the Belin Memorial sanctuary stands today. The Rev. Belin wanted a simpler life than his family, so he started his ministry in 1810 as a “circuit rider” on nearby plantations; some of those plantations later became Brookgreen Gardens. In 1815 he became an elder of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South and continued his ministry to both enslaved blacks and white persons living on the Waccamaw Neck between the Waccamaw River and the ocean. Despite his desire for a simpler life, by 1824 he was given 150 acres of Wachesaw Plantation.

In 1853 Rev. Belin had his Mission House built at Cedar Hill by the inlet where he and his fellow Waccamaw Neck Mission circuit riders would meet and where he lived with his wife. Upon his passing in 1859, the Rev. Belin willed all his property at the time to the South Carolina Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, a predecessor to the United Methodist Church. Today, some of that property includes the entire Belin Memorial campus, and the Rev. Belin is buried in the Belin Cemetery, very close to the Belin Garden. One of his fellow circuit riders, the Rev. John Minick, and two of the young children of another fellow circuit rider, the Rev. Carson, are also buried there. The cemetery was originally a Wachesaw Plantation family cemetery, and the earliest known graves are two small children, ages five and two, who died within days of each other in 1822. While their last name is Flagg, they are relatives of the Rev. Belin. Today the legacy of the Rev. James Lynch Belin continues with a vibrant church, its beautiful garden, and the Henrietta Huff Camellia Walk on the land generously bequeathed by him in 1859.

About the Camellia Collection
Total number of camellia plants: 135
Number of distinct camellia cultivars or species: 79
Paper Map Available