Nature Without Barriers
Accessibility Takes Root at Ashem Arboretum
"I searched for the most accessible tree ID tags available. Originally, I was looking for someone who offered braille."
A New Park on an Old Landscape
On June 30, 2026, Old Towne Creek County Park opened its gates in Charleston County, South Carolina — the newest addition to the Charleston County Park and Recreation Commission (CCPRC), an agency that welcomes more than 4 million visitors a year. Woven through the new park is Ashem Arboretum. Paul Genegrasso knows these parks from the ground up: he started as a high schooler in 2018, and while studying at the College of Charleston he joined CCPRC’s Planning and Development department as an intern. One of his first assignments was to build the arboretum. Today it holds 29 trees — from impressive native live oaks to a breathtaking oak allée at the pedestrian entrance — with ornamental camellias and azaleas sprinkled throughout.
Built for Everyone
For CCPRC, this park marks a milestone: it is their first fully accessible park. Accessibility here is not an add-on. “One of Charleston County Parks’ core values is accessibility, which means it’s built into everything we do,” says Nick Krueger, Marketing Content Coordinator. The agency employs two accessibility coordinators and measures every change against an accessibility checklist provided in a 2020 third-party audit. They've also added new offerings such as headphones at large events and offroad wheelchairs at their beach parks. Visitors can stroll the oak allée or settle onto a dock overlooking a creek fringed with marsh grass — a quintessential South Carolina vista.
Labels Everyone Can Read
That same commitment to accessibility shaped how Paul chose the arboretum's tree labels. Searching for the most accessible tree ID tags on the market, he found that only Plantsoon paired a tactile bump-out beside each QR code with a scan that opens straight to that plant's own page — alongside a high-quality, interactive online map. Accessibility, it turns out, is a core value at Plantsoon too — evident in subscription plans built to serve everyone from the smallest community garden to the largest professionally managed arboretum, in a platform that can present digital content in multiple languages, and in tactile cues that help every visitor locate the QR code.
Paul catalogued all 29 trees in Plantsoon, making each one's story digitally available to anyone who visits. Among them is the Community Tree, a 15-gallon live oak planted at the park’s grand opening: small beside the grand old oaks -like this willow oak- but destined to grow up with the park — the established giants telling the story of the land’s past, the young oak its future.
“It has been a great experience working with the team at Plantsoon, who answered hundreds of emails along the way,” Paul says. “I look forward to continuing the partnership as Ashem Arboretum grows.”
