Let's head to Lake Lure, where a bridge is more than just a way to cross the highway, it is the destination.

Producer Clay Johnson and his videographer, Erik Olsen, take us there.

[bright music] - [Kathy] I love the fact that they saved this old bridge.

- [Clay] This old bridge is the Lake Lure Flowering Bridge.

It's essentially a 20 foot wide, 155 foot long garden with a dozen flower beds, each with its own theme.

- [Kathy] Well, it's about 2000 different types of plants and I think it's 35 different hydrangeas and about 32 different roses.

- [Clay] It all started in 2007 when the Department of Transportation was planning to build a new bridge next to the old one, crossing the Broad River between Chimney Rock and Lake Lure.

When the new bridge was finished, the DOT donated the old bridge to the town.

The town planned to make it a pedestrian walkway, but a group of local residents told town officials they wanted to make it more, a garden.

- [Kathy] They were behind it from the very beginning and could see that the community really wanted to do this.

- [Clay] The group formed a nonprofit called Friends of the Lake Lure Flowering Bridge in 2011 and started raising money.

- We are a great group of friends, very dedicated and we have a very dedicated community around us.

- [Clay] The organization made sure the nearly-100 year old bridge was structurally sound for the plan and worked with a landscape design firm on the layout.

The new Flowering Bridge opened in 2013.

The effort was and still is, all volunteer.

- They are the backbone.

Each person kind of takes an area of the garden and they specialize in it.

- This is my garden, which is the pollinator garden.

And I just need to prune it and weed it and put flowers in it and keep it looking good for everyone.

I love working in the garden and this is just something I could do for the community.

- [Clay] The volunteers add features like whimsical statuettes, sculptures and other art.

- And we have some of the Lake Lure artists that don't necessarily volunteer in the gardens but they like to do the features and so they'll put a feature together and say, "Where would you like this?"

- [Clay] The Rivers Edge Dog Garden honors people's pets.

- [Kathy] There's a little box planter down there with scented plants that dogs like to smell and a stick library where they can get a stick from the library and take home with them.

- [Clay] There's a rainbow bridge where people hang the collars and tags of their lost pets.

- [Kathy] It's a very healing place.

- [Lexi] Bird, yeah, what does a bird say?

- Tweet tweet.

- [Lexi] Tweet tweet.

- [Clay] For Lexi Rodriguez and her 18 month old daughter, Poppy, this is a place for learning.

- I get to talk to her about weeding a garden when we see the volunteers weeding or watering the tomatoes and how that makes the tomatoes grow and just kind of some experiences that we don't get in our daily lives back home.

She gets more out of this than I possibly know and she's gonna go home and three days from now say something and I'm not gonna get it, but it's gonna be something she picked up here.

- [Clay] Education is the Flowering Bridge's core mission.

The plants have tags and corresponding lists that identify them.

- [Kathy] A lot of visitors will look at that tag and then take a picture of the list that they can then take home because it's an idea garden.

There are so many small spaces here that visitors can look at that and say, "Oh, I can do this at home."

- [Clay] The Flowering Bridge conducts classes in gardening and hosts school groups.

It's raising money for an onsite education center so it can still do that during bad weather.

The Lake Lure Flowering Bridge is one of only two of its kind in the country and attracts about 180,000 visitors a year.

- They really appreciate it, so that kinda gives me a sense of satisfaction.

I want 'em to see the beauty of nature.

I want 'em to appreciate it.

I want 'em to learn.

I think we need to save this old Earth [chuckling].

[bright music] [bird chirping] - [Deborah] The Lake Lore Flowering Bridge is at 3070 Memorial Highway in Lake Lure and it's open daily.

For information about this popular community garden, go online to lakelurefloweringbridge.org.