MORGANTOWN — This year’s first annual West Virginia Botanic Garden Day will be May 8, and the WVBG at Tibbs Run Preserve is preparing for a day of springtime activities.
“It will be a nice, soft-introduction into sort of a social event at the garden,” said WVBG Executive Director Philip Smith. “It’s the first event that we’ve been able to have since before the pandemic started way back in 2019.”
The event will be held outdoors at the WVBG at 1061 Tyrone Road in Morgantown. Admission and parking is free to visitors, but donations are encouraged. The event will be held roughly between 10:30 a.m. and 6 p.m.
To help guests take in everything the garden has to offer, free tours will be offered throughout the duration of the event. Tours are available first-come, first-served, and will be available at 10 a.m., noon, 2 p.m. and 5 p.m.
The day will include live music, starting with The Black Sheep at 11 a.m. The Jenny Wilson Duo will perform at 1 p.m. and Mountain Jazz Project will play at 4 p.m. Children’s activities will also be available throughout the day.
Art exhibits including Be Right Beck Art and Kay Lapp Pottery will be on display. Food and refreshments from the Cheese Louise food truck will be available for purchase between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. For those interested in bringing their own snacks, picnicking on the event lawn is welcome.
The Saturday before Mother’s Day officially became a designated botanic garden holiday after a resolution by State Sen. Robert Beach was passed in the Senate this year. The WVBG also became the State’s flagship botanic garden.
“I would say that we are blessed to have this in our community,” said Barbara Fleischauer, D-Monongalia. “We need to support it if it’s going to survive, so I encourage everybody to go to the fundraiser or donate.”
Smith said a botanic garden can be described as a museum or a zoo for plant species. Today, the garden aims to inspire people through the world of plants, expand on its cultivated gardens and interpret native plants for the public. To get to where the WVBG is today, it took decades of development and dedication.
The garden has remained West Virginia’s only botanic garden since it first opened in the 1980s. Smith said it wasn’t until around 2000 that the current management took over and the garden truly began to blossom.
Smith said there was no endowment fund or funding stream available when new management took over; it was just volunteers raising money and trying to find grants for a garden with no infrastructure, plantings or anything needed for a botanic garden.
“They had to start from scratch,” Smith said. “For the first 10 years or so, a lot of people who would visit here weren’t really sure what they were supposed to be seeing.”
The hard work and dedication of those volunteers paid off, as the garden now spans more than 80 acres, with hundreds if not thousands of new plant species added every year.
More information about the Garden or upcoming events can be found on its website at www.wvbg.org.
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