VA -- Norfolk -- Norfolk Botanical Garden -- Visitor Center:
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- NBGVC_150531_07.JPG: The Early History of the Garden
1935:
Norfolk City Manager Tommy Thompson consults with Charles F. Gillette, Virginia's renowned landscape architect, about enhancing Norfolk's public spaces. The two men discuss the idea of an azalea garden along the City's public lakes. This garden would become an East Coast showplace for azalea collections.
1936:
On Gillette's recommendation, Thompson hires landscape designer and horticulturist Frederic Heutte as Landscaping Supervisor for the City of Norfolk.
"Norfolk can grow more things than any other one location that I know of, because southern materials, even to some of the palms, can be grown there, and northern materials are quite at home."
-- Charles F. Gillette
1938:
Work on Norfolk Azalea Garden begins. City Manager Tommy Thompson secures assistance from the federal government's Depression relief organization, the Works Progress Administration, for the hiring of unemployed workers to clear 120 acres of woodland adjacent to Norfolk's new Municipal Airport.
1939:
The first azaleas are planted in the Garden -- many donated by Norfolk's citizens -- along with rhododendrons, daffodils, and other shrubs and trees. Using a general plan suggested by Charles F. Gillette, Frederick Heutte shapes a vision for the Azalea Garden. Heutte devotes a lifetime to the Garden as Superintendent and later Director, retiring in 1965.
1942:
Heutte is informed that the US Army intends to build barracks on the site of the Azalea Garden; the Army Air Force has taken over the Municipal Airport and adjacent property. Through the intervention of Colonel W.W. Lapsley, Army District Engineer, the barracks are relocated. The US military issues a general order to respect the existing plantings and the operation of the Garden as much as possible.
1946-47:
Major Frank Turin, manager of the Norfolk Advertising Board, begins efforts to promote the Azalea Garden as a tourist attraction. Turin persuades B. Anthony Stewart of National Geographic Magazine to visit Norfolk, and in May 1947, the Garden is featured in a National Geographic article titled "Nautical Norfolk Turns to Azaleas."
1954:
The first Azalea Queen is crowned in ceremonies at the Garden, as part of the City of Norfolk's newly established International Azalea Festival honoring member nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Queen Azalea I is Patricia Priest, daughter of US Treasurer Ivy Baker Priest.
1955:
With many improvements and additions made to the Azalea Garden, it is officially renamed by the City as the "Norfolk Municipal Gardens."
1958:
The Norfolk Municipal Gardens become Norfolk Botanical Garden. Superintendent Frederic Heutte hires Nancy J. Meyertons Timmons as principal landscape designer; she is instrumental in the design of the 1958 Master Plan. Guided by Heutte, the new Norfolk Botanical Garden embarks upon a major expansion, laying the foundation for the Garden we enjoy today.
- NBGVC_150531_17.JPG: Three Who Grew the Garden
Frederic Heutte (1899-1979)
Charles F. Gillette (1886-1969)
Thomas Perrin Thompson (1876-1957)
- NBGVC_150531_34.JPG: What Is a Botanical Garden?
- NBGVC_150531_37.JPG: A Garden for All Seasons
- NBGVC_150531_49.JPG: Garden Sculpture
"For a quiet stroll or a moment of serenity, there is nothing quite like the garden."
-- First Lady Betty Ford
Sculpture has been an important feature of garden design for centuries. The ruins of Pompeii, for example, revealed early Roman gardens graced by marble gods and goddesses; many Renaissance gardens also displayed classical statues rediscovered from ancient Greek and Roman sites. Whether inspiring reverence or adding a touch of whimsy, sculpture provides a strong, permanent presence in the garden throughout the cycle of seasons.
Norfolk Botanical Garden began collecting sculptures in the early 1960s, designing a number of gardens around distinctive pieces. Important holdings include Saint Francis, donated by the artist, Eleanor M. Mellon; The Dancing Girls by Mario Korbel; and Madonna and Child by Amleto Cataldi.
The Garden's earliest sculpture collection remains one of its most noteworthy: eleven statues by Sir Moses Ezekiel (1844-1917) representing some of history's great artists. The seven-foot-tall statues, made from Carrara marble, are displayed in the Garden's Statuary Vista.
Ezekiel's statues have an unusual history of separation and reunion. In 1879, the philanthropist William Wilson Corcoran commissioned Ezekiel -- a native Virginian highly regarded in the United States and Europe -- to produce twelve statues for placement along the exterior of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC. Ezekiel created an assembly of artistic heroes, including Michelangelo, da Vinci, Phidias, Raphael, Durer, Titian, Rubens, Rembrandt, Murrillo, Canova and the American scultor Thomas Crawford, whose statue Freedom stands atop the US Capitol.
In 1897, the Corcoran Gallery moved to larger quarters, and Moses Ezekiel's statues were sold to various collectors. Decades later, through generous gifts, eleven of the original twelve statues were ultimately reunited at Norfolk Botanical Gardens.
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- Wikipedia Description: Norfolk Botanical Garden
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Norfolk Botanical Garden (155 acres) is a botanical garden with arboretum located at 6700 Azalea Garden Road, Norfolk, Virginia. It is open daily except major holidays; an admission fee is charged.
The gardens date to the mid-1930s, when the city of Norfolk set aside a 75 acres of high, wooded ground plus 75 acres of reservoir for a city garden. In 1938, under a Works Progress Administration (WPA) grant, more than 200 African-American women and 20 men cleared the site. By March 1939, some 4,000 azaleas, 2,000 rhododendrons, several thousand miscellaneous shrubs and trees, and 100 bushels of daffodils had been planted. In 1958 the Old Dominion Horticultural Society took over maintenance and changed the garden's name to Norfolk Botanical Garden. A number of gardens were added through the 1950s and 1960s, including a Japanese garden, desert plants garden, colonial garden and rose garden. The Norfolk Botanical Garden, also known as the Norfolk Azalea Garden, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Today the grounds include numerous theme gardens, including:
* All-American Selections Display Garden - features All-America Selections (AAS) of new annual varieties.
* Annette Kagan Healing Garden - medicinal plants, stream, and pools.
* Bicentennial Rose Garden (1976) - over 3,000 rose plants representing more than 430 varieties.
* Border Walk - traditional English-style border, with tulips, daffodils, pansies, as well as azaleas, hibiscus 'Diane', impatiens, petunias, and gomphrena.
* Bristow Butterfly Garden (2 acres) - a habitat for butterflies and moths.
* Colonial Herb Garden - American herb garden of the 1700s and 1800s, hedged with boxwood.
* Conifer Garden - dwarf and large conifers, including arborvitae, cryptomeria, False Cypress, juniper, and spruce.
* Fern Glade - numerous fern species.
* Flowering Aboretum (17.5 acres) - a collection of 336 flowering trees.
* Four Seasons Garden and Wildflower Meadow (1994) - more than 50 wildflower species and 10 species of grasses.
* Fragrance Garden (1963) - fragrance plants, including bayberry, fringetree, lavender, osmanthus, peppermint, wintersweet, and fragrant flowering bulbs.
* Hofheimer Camellia Garden (1992) - one of the region's largest camellia collection; more than 500 varieties. Predominant types are varieties of Camellia japonica and C. sasanqua.
* Holly Garden & Turner Sculpture Garden (1950s, 3 acres) - evergreen hollies in garden "rooms". The garden contains 121 varieties of hollies, including more than 20 types of American and Asiatic hollies and a dozen English hollies are grouped by geographic regions.
* Japanese Garden (1962) - created to honor Norfolk's sister city, Moji, Japan, and rededicated in 1962 to Kitakyushu, formerly Moji; redesigned and refurbished in 1995.
* Kaufman Hydrangea Garden - nearly 200 varieties of hydrangea and close relatives.
* Matson Garden (0.25 acres) - large sweeps of perennials and smaller mixed groups.
* Mirror Lake (1939) - lake with paved trail and small woodland trails.
* NATO Overlook - view of garden, with redwoods and blue atlas cedars; named in honor of the nearby NATO installation.
* Norfolk International Airport Overlook - detailed map of Norfolk International Airport with a description of how planes work. Visitors can monitor airport ground communications.
* Purity Garden - Cataldi's sculpture of Madonna and Child, with backdrop of camellias.
* Renaissance Garden (1994) - patterned upon Italian Renaissance gardens of the late 16th century, with vista, terraces, stone fences, statues of the seasons, and reflective pool and fountain.
* Rhododendron Glade - more than 175 azalea and rhododendron varieties.
* Sarah Lee Baker Perennial Garden (1 acre) - more than 200 varieties of perennials, in a formal setting with limestone fountain and canals.
* Statuary Vista - eleven, seven-foot heroic sized statues carved from Carrara marble by Sir Moses Jacob Ezekiel in Rome, 1879-1884, for William Wilson Corcoran, founder of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. These statues were originally designed to be set in second-story niches in the Corcoran Gallery, and depict notable artist (Rembrandt, Rubens, Canova, Phidias, Murillo, Durer, DaVinci, etc.).
* Sunken Garden (1963) - small pool with shade and sun plants.
* Tropical Garden - bananas, elephant ears, eucalyptus, gingers, etc.
* Virginia Native Plant Garden (6 acres) - four plant communities that once covered much of southeastern Virginia: bald cypress / tupelo swamp; bottomland hardwood forest; longleaf pine flatwoods; and Atlantic white cedar forest.
* Winter Garden - plants of winter interest.
* World of Wonders (3 acres) - for families and children.
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