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Every month, it seems, Bellingrath Gardens & Home is either making a new announcement or starting a new project. For the month of May, there are two items that I am excited to write about: our boathouse, and also our long-sought-after plant labels. Although neither project is complete, we still feel that both are newsworthy at this stage.
Well, what is actually happening with these two, disparate projects?! First off, we have officially decided to undertake the process and work of defining all of the needs of our now 20 year-old boathouse, which we have renamed as the River Pavilion. Practically ever since the Bellingraths purchase the Fowl River property in 1918, there has been a boathouse here. Today’s one, constructed after the previous one was destroyed by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, has served its purpose of allowing guests to access the River, while also in the past serving as an embarkation point for the river cruises, but it is showing its age. We are working on plans to replace the wood shingle roof with a metal roof, restore and improve lighting, replace and/or encapsulate the deteriorating pilings, redeck the walking surface, and install new railings to provide enhanced visitor safety. To this end, we have launched a $25,000 fundraising campaign to garner funds to start tackling the process of bringing the River Pavilion back to full functionality, with the goal of stabilizing it for the next 20 years and beyond. We are asking for your consideration in helping us to realize this goal.
Another project that is commonly mentioned in reviews of the gardens is that our plants lack labels. Now, whole master’s theses have been written on this topic, and I can assure you that it is fraught with pitfalls and moments of glory alike. Our take, for starters, at BGH is that we are going to label plants from a prioritized list based both on garden spaces and on our core collections. For instance, you can see a photo in this article of one of our beta-version plant labels of a rose in the Rose Garden, an area that has experimented with plant labels over the decade but that needs a unified approach so that all of the roses are labeled consistently and appropriately for such a grand garden space. We will soon be ordering labels for all of the roses growing here, and so we ask you to stay tuned. After that, we will label 100 of our specimen camellia plants because a) camellias are one of our core collections, and b) we will be hosting the International Camellia Congress next year. What information will you find on our plant labels? Well, we’ll do the standard, basic stuff of giving you a common name, the scientific name, the cultivar name, and some tidbit about the plant’s origin. However, on top of that, we’ll communicate if the plant is patented, who originated it, and from where. At some point down the line, we plan on having this information housed on a mini-database, which visitors will access via QR codes or via our website.
While both of these projects – boathouse and labels – couldn’t be more different, they collectively demonstrate our commitment to excellence in bringing Bellingrath Gardens & Home forward. As the signature public garden of the Gulf Coast Region, we take what we do seriously, and that means that before we unveil something publicly, we vet it and make sure that it will shine appropriately. We think that you, our supporters, will enjoy seeing our plans unfold for the River Pavilion just as much as you’ll learn new things about our plants as we begin labeling them.
Thank you for continuing patronage of BGH.
Todd