Springtime and our early clean up would correspond to what we now call “waking up the gardens”, at this time there wasn’t much to wake up. There was, however, a great deal of space to clear.

These are the days before the ordinance that forbade burning and the days before we had a mowing crew and this is how we handled taming the wilderness. We burned the weeds!

Some cleanup is done just by pulling stuff out; notice the entrance in the background of this photo, it still is just a stock gate. The area that looks like it may be crushed asphalt is what was adjacent to the tower and was the first parking area. The service road system to the West did not exist until later in the year.

The Eater Egg Hunt is a repeat event and looks to be popular with the kids.

We continue to introduce this space to the community and the Cedar Valley is discovering that the Arboretum is a great place to gather and the Herb Club has their picnic here in our newly constructed maintenance building

Next up this year is the storage area/service building; called the Head House

We are still in Phase One-A of the Master Plan. This building was located more to the Southwest in the plan-about where the barn is now. I did not find any documentation that told me why it ended up where it is now, but about in this spot on the Master Plan is a building called the Temporary Visitor’s Center.

Construction began in June. Fundraising was carried out by a committee chaired by Craig Gibleon. They established a fund of $15,000. Tom Walton and the U.S. West Telephone Pioneers volunteered to organize construction.

This national community service organization would contribute many volunteer hours during these early years.

Notice on the image below, the red dot is where the service building was supposed to be. The green dot is the entry road, and the blue dot is where the head house was built.

Head House Construction

A nursery is one more element from the Master Plan that was implemented this year

Kelly Conrad works in the nursery

We now needed an access road to the head house

This Master Plan element was to lead to the temporary parking lot and it did eventually do that. For right now it connects the entrance with the Head House.

You may remember from the article about last year that some limestone pathways were created by an area set aside for some gardens. This is a Master Plan element and the decision has been made to start on the Community Gardens which are located up on Tower Hill.

This location is the red dot on the image below and you can see that they were originally pretty close to that location until they were moved farther West in later years.

An article in the Arboretum newsletter talks about building sheds to keep tools for people to use when working in the Community Gardens. It also talks about these structures being used for shade.

Notice here that there are two sheds, one closer to the tower and one farther North, they are connected with the lime gravel paths laid out last year. The farthest one has nothing to the North of it except a cornfield. This land to the North is part of the Arboretum site but until we were ready to develop it, Hawkeye used it for their Agriculture Classes.

Now that the tool sheds are built, it is time to plant the Community Gardens 

These plots were laid out last year and are to the East of the tower where the Display Garden is now, they would later be moved over to the West. 

There are a number of other gardens being worked on this year.

One of these is the Wattle Garden that we were introduced to as the first garden planted at the Arboretum, this year the annual plantings are decorative Kale and Cabbage.

The next images that I found show some new gardens that are planted and I am beginning to speculate again. There is a garden on the master plan called Annual/Arrival Garden. Here is part of the description from the plan: “The arrival garden should be simple, colorful, and change from year to year”

There is a spot on the Master Plan called, Annuals (see the red dot on the image) and I wonder if the next few gardens were an attempt at incorporating some Annual Gardens into the site. Perhaps, the Wattle Garden falls into this category as well. If so, they were moved farther West, up by the Community Gardens. I should probably make note of the fact that, present day, we have gardens we call Annual Gardens and one we call the Arrival Garden, they are very different from these early ones, but kind of similar. I will make further note of them when we get there.

Iris Garden

Some raised beds were constructed to put other annuals in.

Trial Gardens were identified as spaces to demonstrate what would grow in our area.

Our partner Green Scene has spaces for their gardens at the Arboretum and this year they planted vegetables to donate to the Food Bank

Another area for annuals, called the wheel garden had Petunias and Convolvulus

We received a donation of tulip bulbs from Platts, these were planted up by the Tower.

The Herb Garden is another garden from the master plan; here is how it is described:

“The visitor will venture from the Walled Garden into a warm, sunny garden with stone paving and large pots filled with silver-leafed plants reminiscent of sun-drenched Mediterranean gardens. The south wall of the Walled Garden will provide reflected heat and light, making this space a delightful contrast to the shady walk-through adjacent gardens. Herbs for cooking, medicine, dye, and fragrance will be grouped in display beds.” The image below gives us an orientation of where they are talking about from the Master Plan (red dot is the herb garden)

This is the first layout for the Herb Garden, started by the Herb Club: it remains in this same spot, present day, but is farther West from the location on the Master Plan. Notice the construction of the tool sheds in the background of this photo. In the photo with the volunteers, I know Sara is on the left and Kathy is on the right because they still are volunteering, unfortunately, I don’t know the lady in the middle, and the last photo in this group I think is members of the Herb Club.

And the Sesquicentennial Forest has had a year to grow.

The driving force will always be the volunteers. As you have noticed in the photos EVERYTHING is accomplished through the dedicated people that love the Cedar Valley Arboretum and Botanical Gardens

Folks Like:

Arnold Webster and Craig Gibleon

Bob Lehmeir

Shirley Miller

Sue Dean

Ed Sharff

Maurine Crisp, Kelly Conrad, Barb Brandt, Shirley Miller

Arnold Webster

Hawkeye Students

US West Pioneers

And so many more

1997 was a year of great progress and interest is building within the community!

This is what we looked like from the air