Botanica is delighted to have celebrated the Grand Opening of the Founders’ Garden at the Heigold House on Thursday, May 30th. Hundreds were in attendance to celebrate the opening of the garden that surrounds the Heigold House facade. The house once proudly stood in the Louisville neighborhood known as ‘the Point.’ It was destroyed along with the rest of the neighborhood in the great 1937 flood and has been relocated a number of times, finally coming to rest in its present location in 2007.
The choice to create a garden at the Heigold House was an obvious one for Botanica. We wanted to do something tangible in the community to show the power of gardens to transform public spaces and to improve the quality of life for those in the community. The proximity of the Heigold House to the site of the Waterfront Botanical Gardens make this project seem like an obvious place to start. The Founders’ Garden is the culmination of months worth of planning and was a success in large part because of the support from the community. We are excited to have been able to do brighten up this remarkable piece of Louisville’s history by surrounding it with a period-appropriate garden much like the one that would have adorned the Heigold House in its original location.
We owe a huge thanks to Karen Bohannon for her wonderful garden design and also to Bob Hill of Hidden Hill Nursery and Sculpture Garden for all of his guidance, support and many of the plants that are in the garden. Many thanks to our sponsors Sea Ray of Louisville, Korbel California Chapmagne and Sonoma-Cutrer for making the event a success. We also wish to thank Metro Councilwoman Tina Ward-Pugh for her on-going support and her generous matching fund grant. And, as always, many thanks to those who gave financial assistance to make the project a reality as well as the many volunteers that helped plant the garden.
Consider supporting the Garden by making a donation as part of our Buy a Brick campaign. There is still plenty of space left and you can get your name or message inscribed on a brick to be permanently placed in the garden.
We look forward to watching this remarkable jewel of a garden grow and to caring for it in the years to come. Even more than that, we look forward to the opening of the Waterfront Botanical Gardens!