at our world giving in action
Looking closer
In 2021, we’ve seen first-hand
how the mission of the Atlanta Botanical Garden—to develop and maintain plant collections for display, research, conservation, education, and enjoyment—truly matters during challenging times. On a local level, the Garden serves as a beloved open-air oasis, playing a vital role in the health and well-being of our community. On a global scale, the Garden’s education, conservation, and research initiatives directly contribute to the sustainability of ecosystems around the world, promoting a healthier, greener planet. Your generous annual support fuels our mission in many ways, both large and small, and we are deeply grateful for your commitment to the Garden’s growth and vitality.
Interns collaborate on Conservation initiatives
Unrestricted giving to the annual fund helped to support immersive, hands-on internships in the Conservation and Research Department for underrepresented college-level students during 2021. For up to 30 hours a week over an eightweek period, Conservation interns worked at the Atlanta Botanical Garden in the areas of genetics, ecology, conservation horticulture, and field studies of endangered species. Interns conducted genetic analysis to detect the presence of Fusarium torreyae, a pathogen devastating remnant wild populations of Torreya taxifolia, an ancient conifer endemic to the Southeast. They collected data, mapped plants, and were trained in the essential horticultural curation needed for the rare and often previously uncultivated native plants we work with. Interns also monitored and sampled populations of rare plant species in their native habitats, including Isotria medeoloides, Trillium reliquum, and Sarracenia purpurea var. Montana
The Garden actively seeks out opportunities such as these to diversify the pipeline of students entering into natural resource fields, engaging future botanical professionals in real-world challenges, and offering mentorship to students as they navigate the research experience and beyond. Four of these internships were funded in 2021 through annual fund contributions with additional support from the Peachtree Garden Club.
Gainesville blooms brighter
At 168 acres, Atlanta Botanical Garden’s Gainesville location has a footprint more than five times the size of our Midtown site, and this expansive property provides Garden staff with ample opportunities to work behind the scenes, propagating and evaluating a wide variety of plant material, including recent introductions from Southeast Asia. With the support of annual fund dollars, several mature trees were transplanted this year from our International Plant Exploration Program Nursery into our Gainesville and Midtown display gardens, helping to expand and diversify our permanent collections. On your next visit, be on the lookout for Cornus hongkongensis, a lovely evergreen Dogwood with unusual yellow fruits; Carpinus viminea, a small understory Hornbeam with lovely, hop-like fruits and bronze springtime foliage; and Cercis chuniana, a Redbud species new to cultivation in the U.S. that features four-season interest, with a lovely silhouette in winter, springtime bicolor pink/white flowers blooming in short chains at every node, lush leathery summer foliage, and show-stopping reddish-orange fall color.
Gainesville’s annual festival of bulbs, Spring Blooms, is also growing bigger and brighter, thanks to your annual fund contributions. This fall, hundreds of new bulbs will be planted in perennial beds and in the Ada Mae Pass Ivester Children’s Garden, offering much to look forward to in 2022. A very early-flowering Winter Aconite, Eranthis hyemalis, will be among the first to bloom in drifts of yellow. Various cultivars of small-flowered, fragrant Narcissus will perfume the air, and striking taller forms of Fritillaria will add captivating color and character. Laterblooming Triteleia, or Triplet Lilies, with masses of blue-purple blooms and grass-like foliage, represent an easy-care, drought-resistant option for home gardeners to try. These new additions will complement established plantings, enhancing already-exuberant springtime displays, making the Gainesville garden a perfect day trip for visitors from near and far.
Cornus
Playful plantings enliven the Children’s Garden
In a prominent position along the central pathway in the Lou Glenn Children’s Garden, the colorful new “Butterfly Walk” showcases a variety of perennials and shrubs with bountiful blossoms in shades of blue, purple, pink, and white. The area is anchored by tall, upright ‘Slender Silhouette’ American Sweetgum trees (Liquidambar styraciflua) and distinctive, mature ‘Falling Waters’ Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum) growing around and over an arched trellis. After passing through the “tunnel” of weeping Cypress branches, young explorers can follow the stepping stones back to the Water Wall—and there’s so much to see on the way. Unrestricted annual fund gifts supported the addition of dozens of carefully selected plants with fun forms and flowers, such as ruffled doublebloom Rose of Sharon, Hibiscus syriacus Pink Chiffon®, and sweetly compact butterfly bushes with glorious full-size flowers, Buddleia x Pugster Blue®Ⓡand Buddleia x Pugster Amethyst®. Other standouts include Salvia guaranitica ‘Black & Blue’, Phlox paniculata Garden Girls™ Cover Girl, Stokesia laevis ‘Peachie’s Pick’, and Gaura lindheimeri Ballerina™ Rose. Like so many areas throughout the Atlanta Botanical Garden, this newly renovated “Butterfly Walk” features many specimens beloved by pollinators, including newly planted dwarf, evergreen Sweet Thing®Ⓡ Sweetbay Magnolias (Magnolia virginiana var. australis ‘Perry Paige’) which serve as host plants for swallowtail butterfly larvae. Your annual fund contributions allow our talented Horticulture Team to reinvigorate spaces like this one each and every year, creating memorable vignettes that enchant and inspire visitors of all ages.
Cornus hongkongensis
Butterfly on Rose of Sharon, Hibiscus syriacus
Spring Blooms in Gainesville
Carpinus viminea
Cercis chuniana
Student scientists at work
Your annual fund dollars helped to launch the first year of a dynamic new project-based collaboration between staff on the Garden’s education and conservation teams and high school students at South Cobb High School. This new project called “Southern Seeds” introduced both germination and micropropagation concepts, training, and hands-on research to 30 high school students, further developing the interest and experience of a new generation of plant scientists.
Using the Garden’s expertise in growing seedlings through laboratory science, our Micropropagation and Seed Bank Laboratory Coordinator and our School Programs Assistant Manager developed programming for student scientists to research and run propagation experiments alongside conservation experts. The teams worked together to identify viable orchid seeds on the most successful growth medium for optimum seedling development while hypothesizing outcomes for their real-life data and assisting in actual, ongoing conservation research projects at the Atlanta Botanical Garden.
Annual fund dollars, in conjunction with support from the Katherine John Murphy Foundation, helped to purchase Petri dishes, seed sowing and orchid maintenance media, grow lights, and microscope cameras to make this project a resounding success. This year, Southern Seeds will grow to three classes of 110 high school students at two schools, comparing seed viability from commercial sources as well as wild collections from native plant species.
Thank you for being part of the Garden family! Together we are moving forward on the journey to a healthier, greener world.
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