Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden a Great In-Town Escape
botanical garden, daniel stowe, orchid conservatory, outdoors, recreation,
The Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden rests on 110 acres of beautifully cultivated landscape in Belmont, and invites respite-seekers of all ages to envelop themselves in the vivid colors and fresh air that only nature can offer.
“I think that one of the beauties of the garden is that we’re so close to Charlotte and Gastonia and metropolitan areas, but we feel very far away,” says Kara Newport, the garden’s executive director. “So even if you only drive 15 or 20 minutes to get here, you feel like you’ve gone on a vacation.”
Unlike many other botanical gardens, Daniel Stowe is a display garden, which means they arrange plants based on how they look together rather than their genus and family.
Winding paths snake through manicured trees and shrubs, punctuated by bursts of color. Fountains and sculptures add an architectural element to the garden that further enhances it’s enchanted environment.
“Children, a lot of times, even if it’s unintentional, come away with the most because there are less and less opportunities to interact with nature,” Newport says. “This provides a comfortable environment for people to interact with nature and see it in a different way.”
The garden was established in 1999, and organizers immediately began work on a 50-year master plan that will ultimately include a children’s garden, an education complex, a home demonstration garden, an Asian garden and a rose garden on 350 acres.
The latest addition to the garden is a $9.5 million, 8,000-square-foot orchid conservatory that opens in 2008 and displays more than 10,000 plants.
“Orchids are sort of an unusual flower. They’re not the flower you draw as a kid,” she says. “It’s not just something that someone has told you is beautiful – its something that even a child thinks is beautiful.”
Melissa Marshall is the partner at landscaping design firm MTR, and she led the design effort for the conservatory.
“It’s a sensual experience that is smells, sounds, and sights – color and plants and things like that – so it appeals to all the senses,” Marshall says.
Plants were chosen for the conservatory based on their uniqueness, says Conservatory Manager Jamie Burghardt.
“We wanted our conservatory to bring a wide array of tropical plants that the vast majority of people had never seen, or perhaps only seen in pictures,” he says. “A simple motto was: ‘If it can be found growing as a common houseplant, it’s not the right plant to use.’”
Ultimately, a visit to the garden and conservatory should be a relaxing, rewarding experience, Newport says.
“I really want people to be just awe-struck with the beauty that the plants can create,” she says. “It’s an escape. It’s a getaway. It’s something fulfilling for a family to do, that they feel like they’ve learned something and they’ve accomplished something together.”
