Two decades in the making, Pittsburgh's 452-acre botanic garden is finally taking shape
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This photo illustration shows how the Eastern European woods section of the garden might appear, underplanted with bluebells -
A boy explores a stream in the Memphis Botanic Garden. Terra Design Studios, which planned this garden in Memphis, intends to create a similar one here. -
Fairy House concept image for Pittsburgh Botanic Garden from Terra Design Studios. -
Greg Nace, president of the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden, on one of the new trails earlier this year. -
The Hidden Treasure Cave, a concept drawing for Mr. Rogers' Garden of Make Belive at the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden. -
Puppets, Pantaloons and Pinafores, a concept drawing for the Mr. Rogers' Garden of Make Believe at the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden. -
The McGill Farm looking northwest aound 1940. The farm is now part of the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden. -
The McGill house was built in the 1800s and torn down to make way for the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden. -
William McGill and his daugher Beth around 1937, when they raised chickens on the farm. The McGill Farm is now part of the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden. -
Bill McGill with his annual stand of sweet corn. He always planted two extra rows for the deer and raccoons. -
Bill, Peggy and Beth McGill in 1955 on the family farm that is now part of the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden
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The idea of a Pittsburgh botanic garden sprouted like white trillium in the fertile imagination of Frank Pizzi and five or six others in 1988.
Like trillium, a wildflower that takes several years to flower in our native forests, a series of outdoor display gardens doesn't happen quickly. But 22 years? That's more like the sauerkraut Mr. Pizzi and friends shared that evening at Max's Allegheny Tavern on the North Side: It comes from slow, hard work whose result looks and tastes nothing like the leafy cabbage it started with.
This summer, volunteers spent several Saturdays cutting trails through woods on the 452-acre site in North Fayette and Collier that is the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden. In the spring, they will start to plant native trees among the tulip poplars, red and white oaks, sugar and red maples, elms, cherry trees and dogwoods that cover the site.
Within two years, this section is to be open as the Appalachian plateau and cove forest (naturally) and Eastern European woods, part of Phase 1 of the garden's master plan. Within five years, there will also be a visitors center, Asian woods and pond, English woods and a family garden including the Fred Rogers Garden of Make Believe. Officials project 300,000 visitors per year by 2015.
Greg Nace, hired as the garden's president in April, reveled in the first signs of actual garden creation.
"I came to the realization, oh my God, we have a garden!" he said this summer.
The trails were even more satisfying for Mr. Pizzi, curator of horticulture and grounds at the Pittsburgh Zoo, and Lindsay Bond Totten, who was the botanic garden president until 2008. Both former board members continue to support the nonprofit organization they helped create.
"I'm so thrilled," Ms. Totten said. "It was 20 years of heavy lifting. I felt like it was time for someone else with the energy to take it the next leg."
But what does this mean to you? Why does Pittsburgh need a $32 million-plus botanic garden?
First Published November 14, 2010 12:00 am
