Lush gardens abound at Virginia Tech
Landscape Photo
Lush gardens abound at Virginia Tech
Visit the old-fashioned garden, the new garden or the garden promoting world peace.
The new special events and education center at the Peggy Lee Hahn Horticulture Garden will have its grand opening Saturday at the annual Garden Gala.
"If you have a garden and a library," the ancient Roman statesman observed, "you have everything you need."
There's a library, of course. But there are also three splendid gardens within walking distance of one another.
The relatively new horticultural garden bears the name of a former first lady at Tech, and its education center hosted its first wedding on Saturday.
The Colonial "kitchen garden" at Historic Smithfield Plantation and the university's horticulture garden on Washington Street have graced the campus since 1984.
The Virginia Tech International Peace Garden features plants from countries that have gone through turmoil and some planted in memory of international students at Tech.
The Peace Garden at the Cranwell International Center sprouted a decade later, thanks to Bob Youngs.
Youngs, now the outgoing president of the Rotary Club of Montgomery County, was in charge of the club's international service committee back in 1994 when the idea of creating a garden devoted to peace occurred to him.
The plants chosen for this garden have stories to tell. Sit quietly there and you can almost hear the cedar of Lebanon, the Bosnian pine and the Korean dogwood.
"We tried to get trees, shrubs and flowers that originated in parts of the world that were in turmoil and overcame the turmoil through peace efforts," Youngs explained.
Many of the plants also represent memorials devoted to the international community.
There are roses planted in memory of the young daughter of a local Mexican family and a spruce tree honoring the memory of a Chinese graduate student who was killed after leaving Virginia Tech.
"There are several other memorials," Youngs added, pointing out that the garden site next to the Cranwell Center was once a mobile home court.
"During World War II, there were about 75 trailers there. That was necessary because a large number of veterans came to the university with the financial support of the GI bill and there was no housing for married students at the time."
Now, lush ferns and hostas grow in the shade of oak and cherry trees. Chinese holly and Japanese maples are familiar sights to visitors, many of whom come from the lands where the plants originated.
A bench next to the garden overlooks a vast spread of Hokie stone and the mountains shadowing the horizon. It's a good spot to contemplate peace.
"We find many people sitting there looking out over the campus," Youngs said.
Donna Ludwig of Blacksburg works among coreopsis blooms; she's one of the garden's regular volunteers.
At Historic Smithfield Plantation, on the edge of campus near the duck pond, the garden tells the story of the Prestons.
Col. William Preston moved his family here in 1774. He became a Revolutionary War patriot and died in 1783 while attending a regimental muster. His wife, Susanna Smith Preston, lived 40 more years after her husband and was responsible for managing the plantation.
Now, the buildings and garden are managed by Smithfield's museum staff and dedicated volunteers.
Garden coordinator Lori Tolliver-Jones said the kitchen garden represents the kinds of things the Prestons would have grown in their day. Early colonists brought seeds, roots and cuttings to the New World to plant in dooryard gardens.
"Usually," Tolliver-Jones noted, "there was more than one purpose for a plant. Even the things that look pretty were likely used for another purpose."
Baptisia -- one of her favorites -- is such a plant. Its pretty blue flowers make an attractive ornamental display, but the plant, also known as blue false indigo, was used for dyeing clothes.
Yarrow (used as an astringent, a tonic and a dye) and spider wort (thought to cure the bite of a particular spider) adorn the Smithfield garden, as do hollyhocks, lady's mantle and foxglove, a plant used for skin ulcers and as a heart stimulant that was also thought to combat the power of witches.
Tolliver-Jones said the plants at Smithfield represented three uses: culinary, medicinal and textile.
Those who volunteer their time tending the garden learn history and botany simultaneously.
Summer Driscoll plants a parsnips seed in the Smithfield Plantation garden.
Summer Driscoll, 13, loves working in the garden, although she doesn't always know what will come of her work.
As she gently tilled black soil and prepared to plant parsnip seeds wrapped in a wet paper towel, she admitted she had never eaten a parsnip.
"I probably will now," she said. "I enjoy seeing the plants grow that I've planted."
Tolliver-Jones keeps a photo diary of the Smithfield garden, starting with April's empty bare earth and following the growing season in pictures -- the daffodils of May, cabbage leaves of June, day lilies in July, tall corn stalks and plump fox grapes in August.
For her, it's the enduring quality of a garden that offers perspective.
In her T-shirt and dungarees, she still has a connection to the women who gardened in hoop skirts and bonnets long ago.
"Working in the garden is my favorite part of being here," she said. "It's just so pleasant to be in the garden."
Virginia Tech's horticultural garden has a new name -- and a lot more space.
Officially named the Peggy Lee Hahn Horticulture Garden in 2004 -- after the wife of former Tech president T. Marshall Hahn -- the garden grew from 2.5 acres to more than 5.5 acres after the Hahns donated money for garden expansion and the addition of a new special events and education center.
The center, which crews scrambled to finish last week, hosted its first wedding Saturday.
Holly Scoggins, an associate professor and garden director, said the horticulture garden has long been a popular site for weddings.
Whereas happy couples once had to change in the greenhouse bathrooms, however, the new center offers special changing rooms as well as a reception facility.
But it's not a special occasion that usually brings visitors to the garden.
Coreopsis blooms in the Smithfield Plantation garden with the plantation smokehouse in background.
"Oh, my goodness, all the time people come," Scoggins said. "People come to eat their lunch. Every bench is full."
With literally thousands of carefully labeled plant species, as well as gazebos, fountains and pools, the garden is an oasis amid buildings, stadiums and parking lots.
"Green. It's a nice thing to have," said Scott Rapier, the greenhouse manager.
The garden has trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals that provide a color spectrum ranging from peach to pink, violet to scarlet.
And Scoggins said development of the garden is still a work in progress.
"The whole garden, when it's complete, will have a meadow garden. The object is to bring a little bit of mountain landscape here."
Because the garden does not have a budget allocated by the university, Scoggins and her staff raise funds for operation and expansion. That -- along with her responsibilities for directing employees and volunteers who maintain and run the garden -- keeps her plenty busy.
"My own garden looks like crap," she admitted, surveying the beauty around her. "I have had no time this year."
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