Greetings and welcome to our winter newsletter. There is a famous saying “as one door closes, another opens”, but here at Wilmot Botanical Gardens I like to say, “as one flower falls, another opens”. This adage is being proven every day here in the garden. We also have much to share with you about current improvements and future projects. We also must keep in mind, as we busy ourselves with the constant tasks around the garden, that we have here a place of beauty and healing.
I am proud to announce the opening dedication of the B.J. and Eve Wilder Therapeutic Garden took place earlier this month. Helping to bring this project to completion has been a great experience. I have begun the plantings in the raised beds, with some starters and seeds donated by Flatwood Flowers, including kale, mustard, arugula, tomato, sunflowers, snapdragons, ranunculus, and lisianthus. We also have strawberries and English peas coming along, making their first flowers. These new garden beds also give us an opportunity to explore traditional medicinal herbs like mullein, echinacea, mint, sage, and chamomile. I will be adding perennials like figs, passion fruit and berries to the mix in the early spring.
You will be hearing much more about this project in the future, as we create a place of beauty and productivity.
Another interesting project underway here is making a complete inventory of the garden. Essentially, we will identify, locate, and label every plant in the collection. As you might imagine, this is quite a task. It is, however, a necessity to achieve the goal of international accreditation as a Botanic Garden. The initial phase of the project revealed 175 species within 128 genera. Some species have hundreds of specimens here (think Camellia), while others are single specimens like Tacca chantrieri, Black Bat Flower. The new year will bring exciting updates on our progress.
Finally, as I near the end of my first year here at WBG, I am beginning to learn the natural rhythm and changes of the seasons that are unique to every garden. We have some of the stars of our year-round variety show gracefully bowing out, like Brugmansia (Angel’s Trumpet), and Rhododendron cvs. (Encore Azalea), to make way for our cool season headliners Camellia and their delicate explosion of colors and flower forms. Some of our warm season stars can’t stand our winters and will retreat completely underground until their triumphant return in spring (like Curcurma longa (Turmeric) and Zingiber zerumbet (Shampoo Ginger). I’d also like to remind the reader to keep looking up. Too often as we enjoy a garden, we tend to look down. Wilmot Botanical Gardens is blessed with an abundance of mature trees, with interesting forms and colors. The Acer (Maple) and Taxodium distichum (Bald Cypress) have been putting on quite a show of their own.
December can be a time of reckoning. We might take stock of the past year’s events and contemplate our hopes and dreams of the new year to come. As I write this, the holidays loom large with the joys of family and friends gathering to celebrate. I feel blessed to be able to share this beautiful garden with you all. I wish you a happy and joyful holiday season, and as always, I ask that you find something beautiful today.
Jim Stribling