What’s New at the Gardens

What’s happening at the Tyler Botanical Gardens

The Shade Garden

The Shade Garden includes the 2 acre space that spans the area between the Heritage Rose Garden and IDEA Gardens, west to east, and flanked by the Queen’s Court to the north. The arboretum of the Tyler Botanical Garden, the space features native trees and hardy arboreal cultivars. It showcases shade hardy plants suitable for East Texas, featuring azaleas, camellias and Japanese maples.

A team of Smith County Master Gardeners oversees the care, maintenance and beautification of the garden through weekly work days. The Shade Garden team has completed the 3^rd phase of dry creek beds with our aim of managing erosion and water run-off. While there is still work to do, the creek beds are working well thus far. This year we will add more granite to the woodland path along with flagstone to mitigate water erosion and maintain integrity and access to the path. The Shade Garden team has also been working on updating bed maps (plant names and locations) in preparation for the  implementation of a new plant ID software program to roll out sometime over the next year. The time and effort is well-spent and we are very excited about this new venture as it will be a valuable educational resource to all who visit the gardens. Visitors may notice that the area around the fountain has had a facelift. This project arose from a partnership between the Smith county Master Gardeners and a local TBG supporter which is ongoing. We are so grateful for this kind generosity which has made a such meaningful impact.

As some may remember from the last update, a good many trees were lost in the Shade Garden due to weather extremes. Not to be discouraged, the Smith County Master Gardeners considered the losses an opportunity to showcase low care and hardy trees. To that end, native maples and hardy maple cultivars have been added to round out our maple collection, with the aim of demonstrating sustainability through EarthKind® practices. These robust and beautiful maples complement our well-established Japanese maple collection and make for outstanding fall color.

Other aims for 2025 will focus on planting of native, hardy and water-wise specimen throughout the garden; finish out planting of the woodland area; management of bluebird boxes, and the addition of educational signage.

If you happen to visit during one of our work days, stop and visit with us. We are happy to chat and answer any questions you might have. Come, be our guest.

 

The IDEA Garden

The IDEA garden is constantly being updated. Every season we bring you tried and true Earth-Kind options for planting various annual plants as well as showcase perennials that return naturally year after year. The succulent and Texas native sections of the garden are receiving a makeover this year and replanting has already started. You will notice the addition of New Carolina Jessamine as well as the movement of the Napier grasses along the chain link fence.

In addition to changes to the landscape, this year we are focusing on much of the hardscape in the garden. You may have noticed a new pergola that was finished February 24th. Many of our educational events are held at this space, including our “First Tuesdays in the Garden” series held in the fall and a beautiful and safe structure was essential to support our mission.

Our hardscape upgrades this year also include plans to take up and replace all the flagstone walkways in the garden as well as replacing the rotten wood spacers in our sidewalks (about 13 spacers).

Much is happening in the gardens and our goal is to bring educational opportunities about gardening and landscaping to the citizens of Smith County through our beloved demonstration gardens.

The Heritage Garden

Our big project this year will be getting all our plants identified so that visitors will know what’s working so well.

All three gardens that make up the Tyler Botanical Gardens are working hard to get garden beds diagramed and plants labeled.  Visitors to the gardens will be able to scan a QR Code that will take them to a diagram of the bed with a list of plants that are in the bed. Initially it will be pretty basic with plant names and locations only.  Once we get the basic info there, we will be able to expand with more detailed information including links that will be filled with very helpful data.  This has been a crucial missing part of the garden.  Individual plant labels don’t hold up so doing it digitally seems the best way to go. This is a tedious process but it has begun and we hope to have it functioning by the end of this year.