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Bristol University Botanic Garden hosts Olympic Park planting design talk

Visitors to this summer’s Olympic Games enjoyed spending time in the stunning Olympic Park featuring 25 acres of perennial and annual meadows which could prove to be viable alternatives to traditional bedding in public parks. This November the man responsible, Professor Nigel Dunnett will visit the University of Bristol Botanic Garden to explain the design and preparation of the Olympic Park landscape.

Professor Dunnett, who is Professor of Planting Design and Vegetation Technology and Director of The Green Roof Centre, University of Sheffield, manages research programmes into sustainable landscape planting and green roof development; he is active in design and consultancy, and writes widely for various horticultural and gardening publications.

He believes that many of the environmental problems facing cities can be traced back to a disconnection with nature, vegetation and green and that a partial response to the issues facing populations as a result of our changing and unpredictable climate is to revegetate and green our cities. His work concentrates on innovative approaches to planting design and ways of integrating ecology and horticulture to achieve low-input, dynamic, diverse, ecologically-tuned, designed landscapes, at small and large scale.

Highlights of the Olympic Park planting were the incorporation of Pictorial Meadows Seeds, created by Professor Dunnett. Visitors will have seen both native and non-native plants including Cornflowers, Corn Marigold hybrids, Star of the Veld and Pot Marigolds.

Professor Dunnett will be giving his talk Planting the Olympic Park in Room B75 at the School of Biological Sciences in Woodland Road at 7.30PM on Thursday 15 November. He will talk about the design and preparation of the Olympic Park including how unique factors of the Pictorial Meadows Seeds overcome problems often associated with creating ‘traditional’ wild flower meadows from seed, such as unreliable germination, short flowering season and untidy appearance.

Admission is free to Friends of the University of Bristol Botanic Garden while visitors will be asked to make a £5 donation. Pre-booking is not required.

Visitors to the Botanic Garden in November can enjoy learning about the wildflower meadow project being developed with the Friends of the Downs and the Avon Gorge. This display forms part of the garden’s Local Flora and Rare Natives Collection; it replicates the local Clifton-Durdham Down calcareous meadow habitat.

Other delights this month include the Botanic Garden’s display of terrestrial orchids, including Autumn Ladies Tresses and Bee Orchids, which the garden has been granted special permission to collect.

Throughout November the Botanic Garden will be open Monday to Friday, 10AM to 4PM, or dusk if earlier. The Welcome Lodge will be closed but information leaflets will be available and a donation from non-Friends is requested.

For further information visit www.bristol.ac.uk/botanic-garden.

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Rehoboth Beach — City officials have agreed to build a park to honor Rehoboth Beach’s sister city.

The commissioners agreed, by a 6-1 vote, to move forward with plans for a garden honoring Greve in Chianti, Italy,  in Cranberry Park along Lake Gerar, a 16,000-square-foot slice of land across from Bad Hair Day. City officials hope to have the park ready before a delegation from sister-city Greve visits in June 2013.

However, the commissioners did not set a timetable for building the park, calling for revisions to the plan in response to concerns about the size and scope of the project.

The proposed 9,000-square-foot park, called the Garden of the Navigators, would be paid for by Rehoboth Beach Sister Cities Association, which fosters the sister-cities relationship with Greve. Earlier this year, Rehoboth officials visited a garden in Greve honoring Rehoboth. The Garden of the Navigators would serve as Rehoboth’s reciprocation of the honor.

Commissioner Stan Mills, the only no vote, said while he supports Sister Cities and believes the city should reciprocate, he would rather see a final design before moving forward, as well as further efforts to tie the garden to the Verrazzano monument at Olive Avenue and the Boardwalk. Mills also raised questions about the size and scope of the project, as well as the appropriateness of reducing city-owned open space.

The relationship between Greve and Rehoboth had its roots in 2008 when Rehoboth erected a monument honoring Greve native Giovanni da Verrazzano, who mapped the Cape region during a 1524 voyage along the Atlantic coast.

Commissioners Pat Coluzzi and Mark Hunker strongly supported the new garden. Coluzzi first proposed the project and has made presentations at meetings in September and October.

The commissioners decided not to vote on the project Oct. 19 because a vote on the park was not included on the meeting agenda. Hunker then asked for a special meeting Nov. 5 to vote on moving forward.

At the Nov. 5 meeting, Hunker said he did not understand opposition to the park, which would be a gift, requiring little to no city funds. The estimated cost of the garden is $44,000 or $100,000 depending on the final design. Sister Cities plans to pay for the park through grants from Italian-American service organizations such as UNICO and Da Vinci Foundation, as well as private fundraising.

On the fence about the project were Mayor Sam Cooper and commissioners Lorraine Zellers, Patrick Gossett and Bill Sargent.

Gossett and Zellers both support the concept but raised questions about location, maintenance and other details.

“I truly support the sister city organization. I love the idea of cultural exchange, and I think it’s a generous gift,” Zellers said. “The bottom line is, it’s a city park, it’s public land, and it’s one of the last remaining open spaces. I think its our responsibility to hold on to these areas.”

Zellers said the project is doable, but she has questions on the location and size of the garden, saying the garden in Greve is much smaller. She also raised questions about the park’s proximity to the lake, echoing statements made by Save Our Lakes Alliance 3 in a letter to the commissioners.

SOLA3 President Sallie Forman wrote that while the organization supports the idea of the garden, an environmental assessment of its impact on the lake should be done before moving forward. No public comment was taken or read into the record at the Nov. 5 meeting.

Hunker said the park retains much of its open space, adds more trees and is built 95 feet from the lake.

“It will still be a park,” he said. “This is all greenery.”

Sargent said he worried the city may be establishing a precedent by going forward.

“We may be setting a precedent that would allow groups all over, groups who are well-intentioned, but are going to ask for pieces of the city. If we grant this one, how do say no to the other people?” he said.

Sargent said the proposed garden was becoming a divisive issue amongst the commissioners and amongst the public. He said the garden plan should be revised into something everyone could be proud of, and  it would be a mistake to ram through a project half the community is unhappy with.

Cooper, while not opposed to the park, said he was also surprised at the scale of the project, expecting something smaller than what was proposed.

“It’s something that is supposed to be nice and make people feel good. In this case, it seems to be creating a lot of animosity, significant enough that it shouldn’t go forward in its present form, but should be looked at as to how we can bring more people on board,” Cooper said.

Coluzzi said Sister Cities wanted to work with city officials to revise the plan, and asked for a vote to move forward with the garden.

The commissioners agreed to move forward with a garden design but put off inking a memorandum of understanding detailing responsibilities for maintenance until the design is finalized. However, the commissioners agreed not to let construction proceed until the memorandum of understanding is approved.

When Hermann Park turns 100 in 2014, it will celebrate with a new, eight-acre destination site that will include several special gardens, a sculpture promenade and a glass pavilion.

The Centennial Gardens is the last project to be completed in Hermann Park’s master plan developed in 1995 by the city of Houston. Work on the $30 million project is set to begin in August, with completion scheduled in November 2014.

The Hermann Park Conservancy, an organization dedicated to improving the park, is in the final stages of design and wants to share the plans with the public and get feedback. Public meetings are scheduled from 7:30 to 9 p.m. Wednesday and from 3 to 5 p.m. Thursday at Hermann Park Garden Center.

“We have worked out the design and types of gardens,” said Doreen Stoller, executive director of the conservancy. “Since Hermann Park is a public park and is free and open to the community, if the community has any good ideas, we’d like to hear them.”

Formal rose garden

The project will encompass the north side of the park near the Museum of Natural Science and Miller Theater, with entrance gates at Caroline and LaBranch on the park’s east side and at Hermann Park Drive on the west side.

The site will feature a formal rose garden, an arid garden and an interactive family garden with vegetables and herbs, which will be used in partnership with organizations that promote and educate about healthful eating.

The site also will include a celebration garden for special events. The conservancy receives many calls from people wanting to hold weddings at the park, Stoller said.

A 35-foot-tall garden mount will enable visitors to climb up and look down at the gardens and the formal lawn area. Water features will include a reflection pool and a water cascade.

Renowned architect Peter Bohlin has designed a glass pavilion located at the south end of the project, which will be a meeting room for garden clubs and plant organizations.

The pavilion will be a tribute to the park’s historic plan from 1920, which called for a glass conservatory that was never built, Stoller said.

18 statues and busts

The sculpture promenade will feature public art from around the world, including 18 statues and busts of international dignitaries, currently displayed near the park’s maintenance facility.

The statues and busts will be in a more prominent location in the Centennial Gardens, near the park’s Caroline entrance.

“The most exciting thing about the project is that Houston doesn’t have a large-scale public garden like this,” Stoller said. “This is a birthday gift for the city of Houston.”

renee.lee@chron.com