Gift wows garden gathering
The Oklahoma Centennial Botanical Garden gets a surprise at an annual dinner.
By DANNA SUE WALKER World Staff Writer
Published: 10/10/2009 2:23 AM
A $100,000 gift surprised supporters of the Oklahoma Centennial Botanical Garden during the annual Circle Level Dinner at Southern Hills Country Club.
Just before dinner, guest speaker Amy Goldman presented the check in memory of her mentor, the late Sarah Allison of Tulsa.
Goldman is an author, horticulturalist and member of the Garden's Professional Resource Advisory Committee. She grows hundreds of varieties of heirloom tomatoes, squash and melons on her upstate New York estate and is on the board of the Seed Savers Exchange and the New York Botanical Garden.
Her passion for tomatoes and her latest book, "The Heirloom Tomato from Garden to Table" inspired the menu and centerpieces that featured different heirloom tomatoes vignettes.
The evening recognized major supporters of the Garden. Ray and Nancy Feldman were honorary chairmen, and Pam Carter was chairwoman of the planning committee.
Executive Director Pat Woodrum updated the guests on the progress of the past year and reminded them that the visitor center is open Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. through October.
Committee members included Anne Jones, Barbara Sturdivant and Susan Thomas.
Garden supporters include Gentner Drummond, Stefanie and Tom Atherton, Evelyn Nienhuis, Burt Holmes and Mary Lee Townsend, Susan and Sam Stone, Pat and Clayton Woodrum, Patty and Joe Cappy, Josie and Tim Driskill, Mollie Williford, Pam and Terry Carter, Marion and Bill Elson, R.E. Patterson, Dr. Stephen Adelson, Judge
Tom and Mary Brett, Bette and Dr. David Browning, Wilma Caudle, Bryan Close, Randee and David Charney, Gail Cobb, Polly and John Curtis, Corrie and Ron Egge, Barbara and Jim Sturdivant, Susan and Bill Thomas, Jeanne and Don Marlar, Dan and Brenda Zaloudek, Ruthie and Stephen Duenner, Sharon and Roy Harney, Jerri and Jenk Jones Jr., Gretchen and Dr. Charles Heinberg, Barbara and Carroll Hunt, Joan and Bob Hunt, Lois Lee, Terry and John Mabrey, Aldean Newcomb, Beth and Jim Rainey, Bill McKamey, Lou and Mark Lockhart-Smith, Patty and Len Eaton.
Also, Dorothy and Bob Laird, Jay DeMuynck and Steve Goetz, Carol and Joe McGraw, Ginny Schulte, Robin Hawkins, Tammie and David Maloney, Sandra and Bob Norman, Bob Sachse, Barbara and Allen Smallwood, Marianna and Bill Vesely and Randi and Fred Wightman.
Other guests on hand included former Gov. George Nigh and his wife, Donna, Debbie and Chester Cadieux, Margaret Neely, Bebe Campbell, Melanie and Barry Fugatt, Philip Caudle, Lynn and Dick Wheatley, Sally and Roger Moseby, Rose and Don Reynolds, Susan Brammeier, Debbie Goss, Vicki and Bob Hidde, Carol and Dean Mandelbaum, Belinda and Richard Hedgecock, Sabrina Patterson and Mike Nunnelee, Becky Downie and Clay Woodrum, Dorothy and Mike Tramontana, Sara and David Carlson and Ruth Ann Fate .
Wildflower Weekend Draws People from Five Cities
Eighteen people from Tulsa, Claremore, Broken Arrow, Weatherford and Norman learned about native trees, shrubs, vines, wildflowers and grasses during the Garden’s Wildflower Weekend in October 2009. Dr. Ronald J. Tyrl, emeritus botany professor from Oklahoma State University, led lectures, a lab to look at the parts of flowers, and a walk on the Garden’s trail.
Board Elects New Officers
Burt Holmes has been elected chairman of the board of directors of the Oklahoma Centennial Botanical Garden.
Other officers elected in September of 2009 were Joe McGraw, vice chairman; David Charney, second vice chairman; Pam Carter, treasurer, Gentner Drummond, secretary and Dan Zaloudek, past chairman.
Other board members are Dr. Stephen Adelson, Tom Atherton, Jim Barnard, the Hon. Thomas R. Brett, Barry Fugatt, Gary Moon, John Nickel, Barbara Sturdivant and Pat Woodrum.
Garden Becomes Affiliate of LBJ Wildflower Center
The Garden has been approved as an affiliate of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
To fulfill its national mission of increasing the sustainability use and conservation of native wildflowers, plants and landscapes, the Center encourages the preservation and use of native plants across the country through its network of affiliates.
The Garden, which will enhance its natural prairie with native wildflowers, is the 27th affiliate of the Center.
Garden Members Enjoy Preview
More than 80 members and guests enjoyed a Garden membership benefit July 20 as they saw the seven-acre lake site and temporary visitor center before the lake fills and the building is open to the public.
Many said they had not realized the magnitude of the future Garden until they saw the view from the deck of the building and hiked over the dam and along the shoreline. The lake, which will the crown jewel of the Garden, is 100’ deep at the dam..
Supporters cheer updates on Garden
Click for Tulsa World Story
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Dedication of Centennial Phase
With Centennial wine, Oklahoma Centennial Botanical Garden supporters on April 30, 2008 toasted the dedication of the Garden’s Centennial Phase – a temporary visitor center, seven-acre lake, road and parking lot.
Blake Wade, executive director of the Oklahoma Centennial Commemoration Commission, said the Centennial Phase is one of the two largest centennial projects in the state. He praised Botanical Garden officials for moving the Garden forward.
“Individuals from across America and throughout the world will come here to study, research and enjoy this incredible place,” he said. “More important, it will be a world-class venue for Oklahomans of all ages to enjoy. This is a centennial project that will have an impact far into Oklahoma’s second century.”
The Centennial Phase is an official project of the commission and was funded through a $2.2 million grant made possible by the state Legislature.
Before the toast, guests stood on the visitor center deck and watched dirt-moving equipment continue work on the lake. Construction on the lake is to be completed by the end of May.
Pat Woodrum, Garden executive director, spoke of the many challenges officials overcame in the previous five months: a major ice storm, record rain, obtaining permits from state and federal agencies, acquiring land for a road to the site and “the infamous burrowing beetle.” If the beetles had been found, special protection would have been required.
Board Chairman Dan Zaloudek acknowledged the support of private donors, the Tulsa community, the project’s construction team and governmental agencies.
Dick Wheatley, the Garden’s community relations representative, continues to lead the campaign for state funding.
He said the Garden is good for Oklahoma because of the impact it will have on economic development, including jobs and tourism.
Because construction continues, the public is asked to call the Garden office at (918) 728-2707 to arrange an escort to the site.
Centennial Phase Project Team
Circle Services, Landscaping
CR Forma Design + Build, Visitor Center Design and Construction
Howell & Vancurren, Project Coordinator
Sherwood Construction Company, Lake and Entry Road Construction
Wallace Engineering, Lake and Road Design
Inkind Goods and Services
Greenleaf Nursery, Plant Material
Joyce & Paul, Legal Consultant
Pave-Stone of Oklahoma, Entry Pavers
Dick Wheatley, Community Relations Consultant
Clayton Woodrum, Financial Advisor
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Butterfly and Bird Count Underway
The search for butterflies and birds at the Garden has begun.
Dr. John Nelson, professor emeritus of biology at Oral Roberts University, and John Fisher were on the site last fall, and in April began monthly surveys to determine what butterfly species are present. The results will be in a visitor’s guide to the butterflies of the Garden.
Nelson has been researching and documenting the distribution of butterflies and moths in Oklahoma for more than 35 years and is one of the authors of Butterflies of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Northern Texas. .
On April 28th, 2008 Nelson, Fisher, and Sandy Schwinn found 25 species, putting the number of species on the Garden list at 47. Because Tulsa and Osage County lists have 115 and 114 species respectively, finding close to 100 should be easy as the Garden nears completion.
In addition, members of the Tulsa Audubon Society are compiling a bird list for the Garden.
Each survey lasts 4-6 hours. If you would like to join Nelson, Fisher and Schwinn in their search, contact the Garden office at (918) 728-2707 or pearl@botanicalgardentulsa.org. Because construction is underway, we ask that no one go on site without an escort or permission.
The bird list is at:
http://www.oklanature.com/jfisher/ocbg_bird_list.pdf
The butterfly list is at:
http://www.oklanature.com/jfisher/ocbg_butterfly_list.pdf
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The Trails Are Open!
Eagle Scout candidate Conner Bizwell and other Troop 8
members in March of 2008 cleared a trail blocked with limbs
and trees that came down during amice storm. The debris
blocked 60 places on the two miles of paths. Conner also
donated a bench to the Garden.
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What a day!
March 17 was Oklahoma Centennial
Botanical Garden Day at the state Capitol.
It also was St. Patrick’s Day, 2008, and 80 volunteers from the Tulsa area delivered a shamrock plant to each lawmaker. Attached was a card asking for financial support of the Garden.
In the Capitol rotunda, the volunteers set up exhibits with the Master Plan map, and pictures of construction, education and research projects, events from the past year, and several planned gardens.
One of the visitors was Blake Wade, executive director of the Oklahoma Centennial Commemoration Commission. The agency has awarded the Garden more than $2 million for operations and its Centennial Phase – a seven-acre lake, temporary visitor center, parking lot and road.
Dick Wheatley, the Garden’s governmental community relations counselor, arranged for the group to be in the House of Representatives’ visitors gallery during the afternoon legislative session. When the volunteers were introduced, lawmakers stood and applauded them.
Many of the supporters met individually with their state senator and representative and urged them to support funding for the Garden’s Phase 1, which will be the permanent visitor center, other buildings and many of the planned 15 major theme gardens.
The Garden chartered two buses for the day, which was the first time most of the volunteers had been to the Capitol.
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Ground Broken for Garden
With bulldozer and tractor in the background, members of the board and Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor broke ground for the Garden Nov. 7, 2007.
The first development is the Centennial Phase—a temporary visitor center, road, parking lot and 7-acre lake with island that later will host Oriental gardens. The Oklahoma Centennial Commemoration Commission and state Legislature awarded the Garden $1.8 million for the first phase. Construction will be completed in the spring 2008.
Mayor Kathy Taylor commended the visionaries of the Garden “who understood that one of the assets Tulsa has is its beauty.
“This is another great day in Tulsa. Most exciting to me is that it began with a vision and with hard work of state legislators, private citizens, partners in the Osage Nation, private industry, Osage County Commission and the City of Tulsa Public Works Department.
“Tulsa will have a world-class Garden with educational institutions providing the opportunity where pre-school through adults can learn about conservation and how to keep our great city with the beauty it has.
“The Garden will help Tulsa and northeastern Oklahoma to be a tourism point for this region and the country. It will increase the economic vitality of our city.”
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With state gift, work to begin on centennial garden.
By APRIL MARCISZEWSKI World Staff Writer
9/7/2007
Reprinted with permission from the Tulsa World.
Copyright 2007.
The Oklahoma Centennial Botanical Garden will receive an extra $1 million from the Oklahoma Centennial Commemoration Commission, officials said Thursday.
The state money will allow construction of the garden to begin. An entrance road, a lake with an island and an Oriental garden, a temporary visitors center and a parking lot are scheduled for completion by April 11, said the garden's executive director, Pat Woodrum.
Before the commission promised the extra money, garden leaders had no timeline for construction and were working to raise $15 million for the first phase.
"Eight years of planning, and now it's actually beginning," Woodrum said.
Garden leaders will still try to raise $15 million. They think that having tangible results on the site will increase enthusiasm -- and donations.
The centennial commission's deputy director, Jeanie McCain Edney, said, "We see that the garden has made excellent efforts to secure additional money." The commission hopes the $1 million will serve as a catalyst for more donations.
Last year, the commission gave the garden $1.2 million. This year, the Legislature set aside $15 million for centennial projects. Commission officials said the money is helping to pay for 126 projects and outdoor clocks in communities across the state.
Edney called the botanical garden one of the jewels of the centennial "crown." The state Capitol dome is another.
"This is something Oklahomans will have deep into the next century," she said. It will provide urbanites with a taste of nature and provide enjoyment and education for Oklahomans and visitors from other states, she said.
Woodrum said, "Someday, this garden will be one of the finest in the country."
The entire garden is expected to cost $40 million, which Woodrum attributed in large part to the buildings planned for it, including a 15,000-square-foot visitors center. The garden also will have roads, a conservatory, a three-story observation tower and plants that change every season.
"Botanical gardens are investments in the future, and it's not inexpensive if you do it right," Woodrum said
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Public vies for peek at garden's new trail .
By APRIL MARCISZEWSKI World Staff Writer
9/9/2007
Reprinted with permission from the Tulsa World.
Copyright 2007.
Before Boy Scouts could get to their posts, five women clamored to be the first members of the public to take in the first finished segment of the Oklahoma Centennial Botanical Garden.
Taking in nature and getting in a hike were their chief concerns. Despite rain and mud, the trail was their main attraction at the garden's Oklahoma centennial celebration on Saturday. Most people stayed under roofs, on paved roads and in air conditioning at Post Oak Lodge, where they picked up gardening brochures, attended seminars and saw demonstrations.
Not Kathy Barnes.
In sturdy walking shoes, she ably picked her way over rocks and tiny streams passing through woods and meadows. On an incline through tall grasses, she stopped and pointed to a forested hill, admiring a wisp of cloud hugging the trees.
She and her walking companions reached a high point with a clear view of a small lake bordered by rising hills, and Boy Scout Christian Leithner, whose troop cleared the trail, told them that hill and that lake would be the site of the botanical gardens. Native wilderness and woods, veined with more trails, will be kept as a conservation area surrounding the gardens.
Farther up the trail, Adelle Stults pointed out a waist-high plant, still with mottled green leaves, and said, "The sumac's not very red yet."
The trio, plus Connie Barnett, know each other through Tulsa Walking Club and regularly explore hidden gems of Oklahoma. They rattled off names of trails and recent nature exploits, including hiking in every county.
The women emerged from their "perfect" walk, as Stults reported to a Boy Scout who inquired, before catching a seminar on the songs of crickets and watching a woodworker shape blocks of wood into pen sheaths. 
Boy Scouts Troop 1 Scoutmaster Michael Jones (right) gives directions to hikers Robert and Peggy Stottlemyre on the Oklahoma Centennial Botanical Garden’s new trails. The couple have frequently checked on the progress of the trails, which have opened to the public.
(JAMES GIBBARD / Tulsa World)
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Oklahoma Centennial Botanical Garden
beneath the tropical Sun
By Dr. Richard Lupia
Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History
Seeing is deceiving… or at least misleading. The land on which the Oklahoma Centennial Botanical Garden soon will be built presents a serene, wooded landscape that we expect in this part of the state. But all of that greenery hides a tropical coast where rivers through a forest flowed into a shallow sea. Where you ask? If you cannot see that coast, you are perhaps looking up instead of down, beneath the soil, at the rocks on which the Garden will be built.
About 300 million years ago—before the first flowers bloomed, before the first cycads and ginkgos grew, even before the first dinosaurs hatched—the land that is now Oklahoma was positioned just south of the equator, approximately where the Amazon River flows today. At this time, most of the continents were colliding to form a single mass of land geologists call “Pangaea” and the Earth was in the midst of a long, and massive, Ice Age.
As a result of its location near the equator and a climate influenced by a mile-plus thick ice sheet at the South Pole, Oklahoma was covered in turn by a tropical sea and expansive tropical forests as the southern glaciers advanced and retreated. Rivers flowing out of the then very young Ozark Mountains carried muds and sands to form large deltas extending into the sea. The forests, deltas and sea teemed with all kinds of life.
As the Oklahoma Centennial Botanical Garden is built, researchers, including myself, from the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History in Norman will study the rocks exposed during construction to learn more about those seas and forest. Previous workers have documented the general outline of events more than 300 million years ago that I presented above.
Dr. Steve Westrop, an invertebrate paleontologist, and I, a paleobotanist, hope to work with students and use any new exposures to document events that occurred on the local landscape of the Garden. We are particularly interested in collecting, identifying, and documenting changes in the number of different plant and animal species that inhabited the shallow sea and coastal forests around the delta and along the coast.
What will we find? We do not know yet, well not exactly, and that’s the exciting part. The rocks in the area where the Garden will be built belong to a set of rock units collectively known to geologists as the Skiatook Group and are assigned to an interval of time known as the Carboniferous Period (specifically late in the period, about 305-306.5 million years ago). As you might expect from the name, the Carboniferous is known for containing abundant coal deposits. Coals represent peat swamps in which decaying plant debris survives to become the combustible rock. Plant fossils often are found above, below, and within the coals.
The Skiatook Group also contains sediments deposited in the marine waters around the delta, as well as limestones (including one named the Hogshooter Limestone) representing flooding events when sealevel rose. Locally, these marine deposits are known to contain fossil shells and burrows of the animals that inhabited that sea. In any event, it is the search for these fossils and answers to our questions about the local habitats as they appeared 305 million years ago that intrigue us.
We are pleased to have been invited to work with the staff of the Oklahoma Centennial Botanical Garden to uncover its deep past as all of us look forward to its successful and exciting future.
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Happy Trails to You
By JAY WALKER
Botanist and Garden Volunteer
Most botanical gardens are created as an outgrowth of an established garden, be it that of an academic institution, private garden or estate, or public park. The Oklahoma Centennial Botanical Garden is remarkable in that it is being created at on virgin land -- a site found after an exhaustive search of the greater Tulsa area for an ideal place for a botanical garden.
CLICK for full story
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Tribal Blessing
By APRIL MARCISZEWSKI
5/1/2007
Ceremony marks initial event for Oklahoma Centennial Garden
On a tiny island in a pond, Osage Indians conveyed with prayer, dance and song the peace and meditation that one day may be characteristic of the Oklahoma Centennial Botanical Garden.
On Monday, in the garden's first public event, Assistant Osage Nation Principal Chief John D. Red Eagle asked God to bless the land and to guide developers. Cedar smoke rose out of a black pan on the island and skimmed across the grass in the breeze as part of the blessing.
CLICK for full story
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Centennial Grove
This mature grove of more than 100 Persimmon trees has been designated an official Centennial Grove commemorating the first 100 years of statehood. The “Mother Trees” in the grove are estimated to be 75 years old.
Creators of the Garden’s Master Plan realigned an access road to preserve the trees, which will be visible from the Visitor Center.
The Centennial Grove project is sponsored by the state Tree Bank in recognition of the vital role trees have played in the history and environmental well-being of the state. It also stresses the importance of continued tree planting in Oklahoma as a living legacy for future generations.
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Trail Blazing and Plant Research
Two woodlands and prairie walking trails charted by three botanists and an engineer have been been opened at the Garden.
Both paths wind through ancient forests. The longer trail showcases majestic views of the Osage Hills.
Volunteering for the project have been botanists Dr. Bruce Hoagland of the University of Oklahoma, Dr. Ronald J. Tyrl of Oklahoma State University and Dr. Jay Walker of Sapulpa as well as Gene Phillips of Wallace and Wallace Engineering in Tulsa.
Walker worked with Troop 1 Boy Scouts to clear the trails. He and Tyrl prepared a booklet that identifies 48 trees, shrubs, vines and wildflowers along the routes. Markers help the public learn about the plants.
Hoagland, coordinator of the Oklahoma Natural Heritage Inventory, and Amy Buthod, a botanical specialist for the Oklahoma Biological Survey and collections manager for the Robert Bebb Herbarium, are collecting and inventorying plants.
Hoagland estimates there are more than 400 species on the Garden site. Some believe the oldest trees have been growing for 400 years. Hoagland and Buthod will file one specimen of each plant collected at OU’s Bebb Herbarium, and provide the Garden with a laminated set.
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