The Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden , 30 acres (120,000 m 2 ), is a botanical garden located at 1800 Lakeside Avenue, on the North Side of Richmond, Virginia. The property was once owned by Patrick Henry.
Mission
The Garden’s three-fold mission is (1) to provide education to the community about the plant world, (2) promote the best in horticulture and landscape design and (3) work toward the goal of being a leader in botanical and applied horticultural research.
History
The Land
The gently rolling terrain that is the site of Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden was once the hunting ground of Powhatan Indians.
Known to the Powhatan as “Oughnum” this name underwent a number of modifications beginning in 1690, when Nathaniel Bacon, president of the Council of Virginia, granted James Moore of New Kent County a patent for 573 acres (2.32 km 2 ) on “Uffnum Brook.”
A prominent Quaker name John Pleasants was the new owner, followed by Thomas Williamson, who purchased the tract for less than 50 pounds in 1716; over the next 89 years ownership of the land remained, for the most part, in the Williamson family. Violence erupted n 1781 when Samuel Williamson’s home was pillaged by General Benedict Arnold’s Revolutionary War raid on Richmond. A dwelling, Oak Cottage, was built during this time, and a portion of the Williamson land along with this cottage was purchased by Virginia Governor Patrick Henry in 1786. An outdoorsman, the liberty lover fished and hunted the land, much as the earlier Native American inhabitants had done. Undoubtedly, however, turning a quick profit was the real motive for the purchase, as he sold the parcel to James Thompson in 1788.
The Williamson ownership of the remaining property came to an end in 1805 when the tract, now called Ufton, was sold to John Robinson, a prominent lawyer. Robinson owned the land for 23 years and planted groves of trees and a peach orchard on the property, signaling the beginning of its destiny as a spot of horticultural significance. His brother, Anthony, indulged a comparable passion for plants at his home, Poplar Vale, now Byrd Park.
The property, described as “healthy, well-watered, in a good neighborhood” was sold at auction in 1828, and over the next fifty-odd years its owners were successively, Newton Hill, James Hill, Jr., Nathaniel King and Mildred King Ladd.
On Mildred Ladd’s death, Ufton was divided among her heirs, and it was from one of these in 1884 that Major Lewis Ginter purchased the 10 acres (40,000 m 2 ) which were to become the Lakeside Wheel Club, Bloemendaal Farm and Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden.
The millionaire’s avid interest in planned, landscaped suburban development began during a visit to his company’s Australian office in 1888. The attractive residential developments in Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne prompted Major Ginter’s desire to create the same settings in Richmond.
Upon Ginter’s return to Richmond, the Major began acquiring additional area on the northside. He created the Lakeside Wheel Club on the land he bought four years earlier. The clubhouse he built was a one-story Victorian structure surrounded on two sides by a covered veranda. The original concrete approach walks with their inlaid leaf patterns, the steps, concrete newel posts and wrought iron lamp standards remain today. The adjacent valley and waterways had long been the site of a millpond and were dammed to create Lakeside Lake.
In the Gay Nineties cycling was a popular sport and cyclists, cheered on by Richmond belles, peddled out to the Club on the cinder Missing Link Trail which ran along the Boulevard and Hermitage Road. Spectators of the cycling sport rode out on the Lakeside trolley and were discharged at the end of the line near the dam. After the grueling ride from town, cyclists could sit on the Wheel Club’s long gallery and refresh themselves with homemade ice cream, while boaters drifted on the lake below.
Earlier, north of the lake, Ginter has established Lakeside Park, with a zoo and Richmond’s first professional nine hole golf course. The granite base of the bear pit and many fine specimen trees planted in an arboretum setting remain the present day Jefferson Lakeside Club.
When Lewis Ginter died in 1897 a large portion of his estate was inherited by his niece, Grace Arents. Arents devoted her life to philanthropy and gave generously to many causes and institutions. She was especially interested in helping the children of Oregon Hill. In 1913, she conceived the idea of a convalescent home in the country for sick infants who might benefit from the fresh air.
To realize her dream, Miss Arents purchased the abandoned Lakeside Wheel Clubhouse and its approximately 10 acres (40,000 m 2 ) from the Lewis Ginter Land and Improvement Company. The structure was remodeled in the Dutch colonial style and named Bloemendaal Farm after a small village in the Netherlands which was the Ginter ancestral home. The translated name means “flower valley.” The roof was raised to provide a second floor of bedrooms, a classroom, a library and a playroom for the sick children.
Miss Arents traveled extensively in Europe, and her trip diaries describe the joy she derived from her visits to continental botanical gardens. Her interest in horticulture, already strong, was heightened by her travels and found abundant expression at Bloemendaal Farm.
She imported collections of rare trees and shrubs, constructed a series of three ridge and furrow greenhouses and laid out a border of herbaceous perennials along the side of the greenhouse range. Her great love of roses is evident in the photographs of Bloemendaal Farm taken in the 1920s. This garden, adjacent to the Bloemendaal House, exists today as the Grace Arents Garden. The immense ginkgo on the front lawn, the massive American hollies and the southern magnolias were planted by Miss Arents.
Over the years, Miss Grace added piecemeal to the original area. Thus, she reunited some of the land that had belonged to the Powhatans, Patrick Henry, the Williamsons, John Robinson and others, and Bloemendaal Farm became widely known as a model for the best agricultural practices of the day.
Seventy-eight year old Grace Arents died suddenly on June 20, 1926 leaving Bloemendaal Farm to the City of Richmond as a botanical garden and public park in perpetual memory of her Uncle Lewis Ginter to be known as Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden.
Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden Becomes a Reality
The City of Richmond took the title to Bloemendaal Farm on February 27, 1927, but was unable to carry out Miss Arents’ wishes as a clause in her will gave life rights to the property to her companion, Mary Garland Smith. Miss Smith continued to live quietly at Bloemendaal caring for the house and farm until in death in 1968 at the age of 100.
On her death, the administration of Bloemendaal became the responsibility of the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation. A nursery was established to produce trees for the city streets, and for neatly a decade a small fiberglass greenhouse supplied thousands of bedding plants each year for the public parks. The city investigated several plans for a botanical garden, but none of them came to fruition and Bloemendaal Farm languished.
The Grace Arents Trust had grown substantially over the years. In 1981, First and Merchants National Bank, the trustee, asked the court for guidance. The Richmond Horticulture Association became involved in the issue, and a group of botanists, horticulturalists and interested citizens banded together and formed Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, Inc. with the purpose of upholding the will of Grace Arents.
Eventually an amicable settlement was reached, and in early 1984, Lewis Ginter, Inc. was chartered by court decree as an independent non-profit corporation charged with the creation of the community’s long-awaited botanical garden. The court appointed a committee of five to oversee the dispensation of funds form the Grace E. Arents Trust. The original group, its purpose fulfilled, joined with the newly appointed Board of Directors.
The Early Years
As one fit is first duties, the board chose Robert S. Hebb, horticulturalist and author, as the executive director. He arrived from the Mary Flagler Cary Arboretum of the New York Botanical Garden to assume the position in November 1984. Early the next year, the Pittsburgh firm, Environmental Planning and Design, won the competition to create a master plan.
Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden was soon open on a sustained basis, and Bloemendaal House was repaired and refurbished through the generosity of individuals and the Virginia Department of Historic Resources. A small staff of nine “pioneers,” operating from the newly refurbished structure carried out all the duties of the Garden, initiated the educational programs and began building plant collections.
The Bloemendaal Society, the Garden’s volunteer organization, was organized in January 1988 to accommodate the Garden’s volunteers. In addition to offering seminars and garden tours, the Society catalogued the books in the library and opened a gift shop, The Shop in the Garden. Volunteers also organized the Gillette Forum, a landscape and design symposium named in honor of the “interpreter” of the Virginia Garden, Charles F. Gillette. Evidence that there was a community interest in la
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