Have you ever had a dream to do something that you knew was the right thing to do, but it took years of working toward that goal to make it a reality? It seems like many of life’s great accomplishments start out as dreams requiring an incredible amount of time and persistence before they come to fruition.

At Lewis Ginter, we’ve had a dream like this for a while — it’s called our Water Management Plan &  Demonstration Garden.  In 2007 we received a grant from Henrico County and completed a hydrologic masterplan with Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects. The plan focuses on smart water use, conservation, filtering and rain gardens with the goal of helping to protect the watershed of the James River and the Cheasapeake Bay. Currently we are working on funding to make this exciting plan a reality. 

Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden is in a unique position to share best practices with the broad community. The Garden’s mission is focused on public education and it has the ability to demonstrate effective and replicable water management techniques to more than a quarter million visitors, including 42,000 school-age children, each year.

Of course with any project like this, finding the financial backing to make it a reality is key. That’s why we recently entered Rain Bird Intelligent Use of Water Awards. Rain Bird is giving away $50,000 for innovative water-saving projects like ours.  We’ve entered our Water Management Demonstration Garden project in the $10,000 category.  This is also where you fit into the picture: we need you to vote! (Voting takes just a second, no email is required and you can vote daily through March 22).

But before you do, let me take a minute to let our Executive Director Frank Robinson tell you in his own words why this project is so important for Richmond and for the entire Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

Water flows downhill. Fundamental – but essential – especially if there are folks who live uphill or upstream from you. Another fundamental truth about water is that all water systems are interlinked. What our friends upstream put into the James River impacts our drinking water, and what we in Richmond add accumulates in the Chesapeake Bay. With bioaccumulation, the absorption of pollutants in plants and animals, what flows “downhill” also begins to show up in our food supply.

Not only do we hope to optimize the capture and use of water, the quality of recycled water used on our property, and the cleanliness of water that leaves our property, we hope to establish a model that can be replicated on hundreds of other properties in the region. We all have a responsibility to keep our water clean, and this is a first step to demonstrate the many ways in which we can most effectively manage our properties, large and small.

The good news is that there are many effective, low-cost, natural methods to help us in this pursuit – biofiltration of streams and ponds, soil amendments to increase absorption of surface water, the planting of trees and shrubs that naturally absorb carbon-dioxide and other pollutants, not to mention cooling our urban areas and reducing the amount of air conditioning required in warm weather (decreasing the use of electricity, fossil fuels and refrigerants).

Water management is a good investment. More than 2.5 million Virginians live in the 6.5 million-acre James River watershed.

So thank you for taking the time to consider voting for our project. When our dreams come true, we hope you’ll be among the first to visit and take pride in helping to make it happen.

I write the following to document and interpret the impact of our weather on the Garden, but more so to commend the horticultural, operations, maintenance and volunteer staff for the superb job you have done under really difficult conditions in recent weeks, with special thanks to Jay, Danny, Mike, John and Karen for their efforts to ensure we have adequate water to get through the next month!  Thank you! Thank you!

You may have noticed in the last few weeks  evidence of extreme stress on trees in the landscape. I mention this for two reasons — the dramatic nature of the change, and the various ways in which these plants respond to extreme environmental stress.

You may think trees can die from drought alone, but in truth, when we have prolonged drought and no intervening rain to reduce both air and soil temperatures, trees (and other plants) actually die from root systems shutting down from soils that are too warm.  Both lack of water and soil temperatures reduce root metabolism, but once soils reach temperatures beyond 95 degrees F, root respiration slows to a stop, and the trees virtually suffocate.

Oak species tend to have the greatest fragility levels, literally reaching a stress point and sometimes “die over night,” including very mature specimens.

Other species cope by defoliation or segmental death of the plant – individual branches or certain segments (top half) of the tree dying to reduce the amount of strain on the plant’s attempts to support foliage, flowers and fruit through the uptake of water and nutrients.

Urban trees suffer the most under these conditions. The greater the soil mass, ability of soils to hold water, quantity of understory plants which help to shade and cools soils, mulch and accumulated organic materials covering root zones, etc. all impact a tree’s ability to survive these extremes.

Irrigation provides both water and soil cooling, and can make the difference between life and death, but water alone can’t overcome the impact of hot soils – 100-degree wet soil and 100-degree dry soil are equally fatal. Trees living in small soil volumes, with large tree-to-soil ratios, in compacted soils, with limited root systems, without the benefit of other “communities” of plants to mitigate their environment, etc. really suffer in this kind of weather.

There are ethical discussions about irrigation and whether it should be used during water stress. Luckily, the vast majority of Lewis Ginter’s irrigation water comes from rain we collect in our lakes from surface run-off, roofs and clean paving. The issue of using treated water from public utilities gets more complex (and that is subject for another discussion), but I believe trees do so much good for our environment, the use of water to sustain them is inarguable.

We had a very wet winter and spring, and ideal pollination conditions for many spring flowering trees. This is now seen in particularly heavy fruit set, as seen in our venerable female Ginkgo at Bloemendaal House. Maples (Acer species) and Redbuds (Cercis species) also had very heavy fruit set this year. Plants invest the majority of their energy into their flowers and fruits – their next generation. Sadly, our Ginkgo has invested so much nutrient in its fruit that the accumulated weight has resulted in the spontaneous loss of several major branches in the past month. This is highly uncommon, but in this case, it is too much of a good thing. Trees currently in flower or fruit are subject to especially high stress as they attempt to survive in order to reproduce.

Not all trees within similar conditions respond the same. There could be multiple factors involved, (disease, insect infestation, etc.), but under these extreme conditions, the genetics of a plant have huge influence. In truth, we have limited clones in most landscape plantings, and genetic variation is an important factor in a tree’s longevity. As in all of nature, it is the survival of the fittest. So, if you see one tree thriving in a landscape and another in stress, it could well be its genetic make up – just as some of us humans live to a ripe old age, and others do not.

It has long been my contention that the entire Botanical Garden is one big research project – that so many plants in so many conditions have never been assembled in Central Virginia before. As they mature, grow into communities, impact one another with shade, root competition, etc., adapt to micro-climates, and are tested by time, weather, disease, insects and cultivation, our accumulated learning will be rich indeed.

In spite of many weeks of record-breaking temperatures and drought, we have very few plants which are “at risk” or which have been damaged by the conditions. Those few which are struggling will teach us all more about nature in general, and the plants species, varieties and cultivars specifically.

I want to commend the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden horticultural and maintenance staff and volunteers for an outstanding job of keeping the Garden’s collections healthy and strong through this period. Their steadfast dedication seven-days-a-week keeps this “research project” an oasis of beauty and a center of education which benefits the entire region.