Very near to its third year anniversary, Cindy celebrated by spending a full day at the Children’s Garden at Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens. She gained valuable insight by meeting with staff to learn what components have met or exceeded expectations and what needed to be adjusted. Mostly, she sat and observed how families were using and enjoying the spaces. Nothing warms a designer’s heart more than to hear comments like, “Look! There are rainbows!” at the Misting Boulders and “I don’t care if I get my shorts wet. This is an opportunity of a lifetime!” at Sandstone Creek. The Children’s Garden remained open during much of the pandemic and was a financial lifesaver for the Gardens since the indoor experiences needed to adhere to much stricter health guidelines.
Cindy then traveled north to Kingwood Center Gardens to revisit the Garden Gateway project there. The Garden Gateway project officially opened in October 2020, so Terra wanted to check in under “normal” conditions to see how things were progressing. Cindy was delighted to witness many visitors enjoying the new visitor center, called the Gateway Center designed by The Seckel Group. The Gateway Café in particular was bustling, especially heartening because food service was not available to visitors in the past. The contrasting foliage of the Auto Garden planting was strikingly beautiful, and the Grand Perennial Garden, in part designed by Austin Eischeid, was filling in nicely. An ulterior motive was to visit with executive director, Chuck Gleaves, before he fully retired from that position. Terra will return later in the summer to tour Chuck’s personal garden and hopefully meet the Kingwood Center Gardens’ new executive director, Josh Steffen.