From early in the year when volunteers bundled native grasses with artist W. Gary Smith, right through to the final fall weeks, the ART GOES WILD exhibit was a hit, and a true celebration of 75 years of Garden in the Woods.

The Idea Garden, now a permanent feature of Garden in the Woods, featured an ornamental sedge lawn which was very popular, both for beauty and for its GREEN value, requiring no mowing and very little supplemental watering. The staff enjoyed installing cool new displays like the Floating Gardens, and we learned a lot about using native plants in more formally designed settings.  

At the Garden in the Woods entrance visitors now see new Betula papyrifera cv. Rennaisance reflection (white birch), Cotinus obovatus (American smoketree) and Cornus sericea (red-osier dogwood) and many new perennials.   Come enjoy the Heuchera spp and Carex spp we’ve planted at the Visitor Center . We added native annuals this year for container displays and as part of the Western Garden display, like  Phlox drummondii, Gilia tricolor (birds’s eyes) and Linanthus grandiflorus (large flowered lianthus).

We installed our first Rain Garden at Garden in the Woods, which is visible from the Lawrence Newcomb library at the corner of the Education Building.  A rain garden allows us to make use of runoff from the gutters as additional irrigation for plants that can withstand both wet and dry feet – and lots of splashing. The Garden is planted with Lobelia cardinalis & siphilitica (cardinal flower & great blue lobelia) , Ilex verticillata (winterberry), Astilbe biternata (appalachain goat’s beard), Symphyotricum turbinellum (prarie aster) and more.