The Columbus Botanical Garden will dedicate its three newest gardens in a special ceremony on Friday morning, April 30^th, at the Garden. During closure of the Columbus Botanical Gardens due to COVID-19, and into the Fall of 2020 after reopening, Garden staff worked to continue expanding and improving the gardens. These three new gardens are part of a ten-year master plan for expansion, which has been made possible thanks to continual support from the Columbus community. Special donors for these three gardens will be recognized, and the dedication event is open to the public. 

The three new gardens are:

The Adrianne and Wade Wallace Pollinator Garden 

The Southeastern Native Perennial Garden

The Ginkgo Shade Garden

Pollinator Garden benefits:

The new Pollinator garden boasts over 50 unique species of plants and grasses, which is a remarkable amount of diversity to attract pollinators.   Pollinator gardens are essential in supporting the local ecosystem by providing food and shelter for pollinating insects, such as bees and butterflies. The Garden has cultivated a bee colony onsite for educational purposes and to provide local honey to the community.

Perennial Garden incorporates our cultural and natural history:

The Perennial garden highlights a variety of beautiful blooms, including some of Georgia’s rare wildflowers and grasses. In a unique partnership, the University of Georgia’s State Botanical Garden grew these native wildflowers from seed. Additionally, the Perennial garden is surrounded by granite embedded with an inspiring quote by late William Bartram, a renowned American naturalist, about the area’s own Chattahoochee River. Bartram penned these words as he passed through this region in the late 1700s. 

An additional historical overture in the Perennial Garden are benches created from re-purposed mid-nineteenth century timber from the Eagle and Phenix Mills and City Mills in Columbus. These timbers were underwater at the Mills for over 150 years. 

The Ginkgo Shade Garden:

The Ginkgo Shade garden, will offer shade and color with their signature, brilliant yellow fan-shaped leaves in the fall. These trees can live up to a surprising 3,000 years and are sure to provide beauty and shade for many years to come. This Ginkgo Shade garden also includes vibrant Japanese Maple trees and a path that mimics the twists and turns of the Chattahoochee River. 

As an additional overture to local natural history, this garden is accentuated by boulders from Old Town, located just 2 miles from the Garden.  These gorgeous granite boulders were hand-picked to be embedded in the Garden paths, telling the story of the deep history in the geology of our region. 

Each of these gardens celebrates the beauty of many Southern species, as well as these intertwining stories of cultural and natural history.