Research station turns into botanical garden | savannahnow.com

With a giant bamboo maze and a new visitors and education center in the works, the Bamboo Farm is morphing into a premier botanical garden.

“A botanical garden is ultimately a zoo for plants,” said Jamie Burghardt, horticulture coordinator. “It’s about connecting people with plants and nature.”

Originally a farm with a stand of Japanese bamboo planted in the late 1800s, the site — about 10 miles from downtown Savannah on U.S. 17 — in 1919 became a U.S. Department of Agriculture plant introduction station where bamboo and other plants were tested for uses ranging from medicine to paper. Cost-cutting measures closed that operation in 1979. The site was handed over to the University of Georgia in 1983. Since then it supported agricultural and horticultural research, education and outreach.

But more funding cuts and the threat of closure in the middle of the last decade forced the 51-acre site to refocus its mission again.

“We said we need to move forward with something broader in appeal than just bamboo,” said Alan Beals, president of the Friends of Coastal Georgia Botanical Gardens.

A botanical garden was a perfect fit.

“Our research has found there’s no major botanical garden along I-95 corridor from Richmond, Va., all the way to Miami, Fla.,” Burghardt said.

So the “Bamboo Farm and Coastal Gardens” officially became the “Coastal Georgia Botanical Gardens at the Historic Bamboo Farm” on Sept. 18, 2012. Those partial to bamboo needn’t worry. There’s still a huge collection of bamboo artifacts ranging from slippers to pigeon whistles accumulated by the USDA and retrieved from storage at the Smithsonian.

via Research station turns into botanical garden | savannahnow.com.