The Atlanta Botanical Garden

The Atlanta Botanical Garden is a thirty-acre botanical garden located adjacent to Piedmont Park in Midtown Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Incorporated in 1976, the garden's mission is to "develop and maintain plant collections for the purposes of display, education, conservation, research and enjoyment." The year 1980 marked a turning point in the history of the garden, as a 50-year lease was negotiated with the city, securing the site of the Garden for years to come. A number of promotional activities started taking place, including social events, major art exhibitions and the annual Garden of Eden Ball. The Atlanta Botanical Garden welcomed its 50,000th visitor within three years after the lease was arranged--this was even before any permanent structures had been erected. In 1985, the Atlanta Botanical Garden built its first permanent structure, the Gardenhouse. Expansions following this were The Children's Garden (1999), the Fuqua Conservatory in 1989 and the Fuqua Orchid Center which was added in 2002.

Entry to the Atlanta Botanical Garden: Courtyard and fountain

The kinetic sculpture Airborne by Moto Ohtake stands on a small earthen island near the front entrance to the Hardin Visitor Center, greeting visitors to the Garden. This example of kinetic art was on display during the Sculpture in Motion exhibition in 2008. In the words of the artist, “The kinetic work interacts with nature and allows the viewer to become engaged with the sculpture. The sculpture responds to the environment and serves to heighten the viewers' awareness of their natural surroundings. They are self-contained systems that are wind driven and provide the viewer with an infinite number of movements that range from tranquil to frenetic as the weather patterns change.” (Moto Ohtake)

A closer view of Airborne

“Kinetic sculpture incorporates aspects of design, engineering and physics. While abstract in approach, the themes combine opposing factors, including chaos and order, simplicity and complexity as well as gravity and balance which all serve to remind the viewer of our connection to the greater universe.” (Moto Ohtake)

The Garden features dozens of permanent pieces of art, including sculptures and water features. “Independent Visions: Sculpture in the Garden” is a group exhibition of contemporary sculptures by nine internationally acclaimed artists. The exhibit runs from May through October, 2012. I was lucky enough to visit the Garden in June and see this exhibition. Some of the sculptures look as if they belong in the Garden, and my guess is that sponsors are being sought to buy and donate some of the sculptures in the exhibition for permanent display in the Garden.

Yvonne II

by Manolo Valdes is one of the “Independent Visions” sculptures on display in the courtyard of the visitor center. This sculpture is part of a series of six monumental bronzes, all over 12 feet high, which depict female heads. “Their calm facial composure and structured equilibrium is offset by dynamic ornamental headpieces inspired by Matisse and Picasso.” (exhibition brochure )

The Green Expansion Plan was a large-scale expansion project that was completed in the spring of 2010 that doubled the size of the Garden while modernizing it at the same time. The expansion plan included the construction of a number of new facilities, the most noticeable of which were the new visitor center and 600-foot-long canopy walk.

Nepenthes Chandelier by Dale Chihuly

Hardin Visitor Center

The Nepenthes Chandelier by Dale Chihuly was a favorite of visitors during the 2004 “Chihuly in the Garden” exhibit. Brightly colored glass in hues of yellow, chartreuse, and gold with touches of red, the chandelier sparkles in the Hardin Visitor Center. The Nepenthes Chandelier was donated by David Jost Tufts in memory of Jeff Lewis.

Maple Leaf Rag by Dave Horner

Hardin Visitor Center

Maple Leaf Rag by  Dave Horner is a collection of five maple leaves, ranging in color from summer-green to fall-red. The carbon steel and acrylic sculpture, designed from maple leaves from the Garden itself, shares the same name as the most popular ragtime song ever, composed by Scott Joplin in 1899.

Southern Seasons Garden

Hydrangeas in the Southern Seasons Garden

The Hydrangea Collection, developed with the assistance of the Atlanta Chapter of the American Hydrangea Society, is one of the finest in the Southeast. It contains more than 160 cultivars of Hydrangeas. They peak in late May and June, with stunning blooms of pink, blue and white.

A water feature in the Southern Seasons woodland garden

Water feature in the Southern Seasons Garden

Mountain Hydrangea, a lace-cap type of hydrangea from Japan

Meeting Ends by Chakaia Booker

This sculptor is hailed as the “Queen of Rubber Soul.” She uses strips and sections of recycled tires to create her large, intricate works. The sculpture is part of the “Independent Visions” exhibition.

Levy Parterre Fountain by Dale Chihuly

In 2004, the Atlanta Botanical Garden hosted an extremely successful exhibition of glass art by Dale Chihuly titled "Chihuly in the Garden." The exhibit ran through the end of October and was extended until December 31, 2004. During the eight-month run, an estimated 425,000 attendees visited the exhibit. The peak per-day rates of 7,500 were double the previous single-day attendance record at the Garden.

Created for the Atlanta Botanical Garden in 2004, Dale Chihuly's Parterre Fountain Installation is a one-of-a-kind sculpture that interprets shapes and colors of water, ice and sky. An assemblage of twisting, brightly colored glass, the sculpture is especially lovely lit up after dark.

The Alston Overlook is at the highest point in the Garden. From there, you have a panoramic view across the colorful beds of the Levy Parterre and the Fuqua Conservatory framed by the Midtown Atlanta skyline.

Garden Walk

Garden Walk with the Rose Garden in the background

The Great Lawn and the Fuqua Conservatory

Vine arbor on the right side of the Great Lawn

Sculptures by Red Grooms: Charleston (on left) and Flamenco Dancers (on right)

They are located amidst the perennial border on the left side of the Great Lawn.

 Band Shell

On this day, band members were setting up for a performance with singer k.d. lang in the evening. I didn’t know about the performance at the time, but I couldn’t have gone anyway because the show was sold out.

Fuqua Conservatory

The 16,000-square-foot Dorothy Chapman Fuqua Conservatory contains indoor exhibits of plants from tropical rain forests and deserts. The rain forest room of the Fuqua Conservatory is also populated by tropical birds, turtles, and several exhibits of poison dart frogs. Adjoining this building, the Fuqua Orchid Center contains separate rooms simulating the tropics and high elevations in order to house rare orchids from around the world.

Michele Oka Doner’s Primal Self Portrait in the Reflecting Pond in front of the conservatory. The artist was influenced by her childhood relationship with the sea. The “highly textured surface of the cast bronze simultaneously evokes coral formations and ancient relics.”

Michele Oka Doner's Figure with Long Arms

The Hardy Succulent Garden located alongside the Fuqua Conservatory. Here you can find plants from the cactus family, some agaves and other desert plants that can grow outside in the Atlanta area.

The Hardy Succulent Garden

Succulents are plants that store water in their stems, roots and/or leaves, which allow them to have some access to water during dry periods. Almost all cacti are succulents, but not all succulents are cacti.

Prickly Pear Cactus in the Succulent Garden

The Orchid Center in the Fuqua Conservatory

This building houses the Orchid Atrium, the Orchid Display House, and the High Elevation House. The Fuqua Orchid Center is home to the largest public collection of orchids on permanent display in the U.S. Its unique Tropical High Elevation House provides the correct habitat for montane orchids (orchids that grow in mountainous regions) and companion plants from around the equator at elevations of 6,000 to 10,000 feet. The Tropical Display House is filled with fragrant orchids from around the world.

Morrie and Poly are old friends, whom we visited in Atlanta. Nowhere in this world could you find more wonderful hospitality than we experienced with Morrie and Poly. Here they are against a backdrop of phalaenopsis orchids.

Robert and Becky in front of an orchid trellis

Horizontal Twist by Beverly Pepper

 The artist, who works in Italy, is a pioneer in creating monumental abstract works in cast iron, bronze, stainless steel and stone.

Horizontal Twist  by Beverly Pepper

The High Elevation House vegetation

A display wall of orchids

Cascading orchids

A small pool surrounded by tropical plants

A plant with a green-on-green variegated leaf on one side and scarlet on the other side

Orchids perched high on a tree branch

A flowering bush with frilly little pink flowers

Tropical yellow flowers

A stag horn fern (I think). A beautiful plant that can’t take full sun and I can’t succeed in growing.

Medinilla, sometimes called "Malaysian orchid"

Another water feature in the High Elevation House

Tropical blooms

Pitcher plants--obviously

The Tropical Rotunda in the Fuqua Conservatory

The equatorial regions of the world occupy around 10 percent of Earth's surface and contain more than half of the world's plant and animal species. Tropical rainforests are wet, warm habitats with dense tree cover which receive more than 80 inches of rainfall a year. Because of the consistent mild and humid conditions, tropical rainforests have incredible plant and animal diversity. Many of these regions are under threat from deforestation, climate change and development. The Tropical Rotunda has hundreds of species from these tropical regions. These collections are a valuable tool for education, research and conservation. They are arranged in communities that provide a living model of specific habitats from selected geographical regions. The collections are themed by geographical regions: Lowland tropical forest: Central America, Central Africa, Southern Mexico, Southeast Asia and Islands of high endemics (endemic means it is unique to a defined geographic location): Seychelles, Madagascar, Mascarene and the New Zealand, New Guinea, New Caledonia, Comoros Islands.

Roots hanging down from a Cissus vine, which is currently growing along the ceiling of the conservatory

Frogs on a bromeliad plant

A hanging basket in the Conservatory

Reflecting the Dorothy Chapman Fuqua Conservatory and the sky, this Aquatic Plant Pond pool is filled with hardy and tropical water lilies, lotus and aquatic plants. The sculpture in the pond is Key City by Kenneth Snelson, another of the “Independent Visions” sculptures.

The pond with the Atlanta skyline in the background

Sculpture Key City by Kenneth Snelson

“Structure to me is involved with forces, the stressing of pieces together, the kind of thing you find in a suspension bridge, for example. It is a definition of what is going on to cause that space to exist.” (Kenneth Snelson)

A frog sitting on a lily pad in the pond

Longo Monolith by Beverly Pepper

Longo Monolith and the Atlanta skyline

Four Rectangles by George Rickey

“For the kinetic artist…nature is omnipresent and is always nudging his elbow. For him, it is source book, example, competitor, seducer, and also inexorable adversary.” (George Rickey)

This abstract bonded bronze work was sculpted and cast by Sergio Dolfi as a "watching being," symbolizing alertness. Dolfi appropriately named it Guardian. It is part of the Garden’s permanent collection.

A view of the woodlands below from the Canopy Walk

The Atlanta Botanical Garden is home to the Kendeda Canopy Walk, a 600-foot-long skywalk that allows the visitors to tour one of the city's last remaining urban forests-­from around 40 feet in the air through the treetops of the Storza Woods. The skywalk extends from a bluff in the Garden into the branches of oaks, hickories and poplars. The structure also provides an aerial view of the woodland garden below. Extending 600 feet from a hillside into the forest, it is considered the only tree canopy-level walkway of its kind in the U.S. Strolling the 12-foot-wide concrete pathway, visitors feel like they are floating through the hardwoods as they take in aerial views of the woodland garden below. The Canopy Walk was built for $55 million and opened in 2010. The gracefully suspended 12-foot-wide walk was designed in such a way as to have a very minimal impact on the trees and woodland floor.

The Cascades Garden as seen from the Canopy Walk

Graceful stool with a molded wooden seat on the Canopy Walk (It’s bolted to the ground, too.)

Poly at a Lookout Point on the Canopy Walk

Gift Shop with sculpted frogs

Gift Shop with kinetic sculptures

A Magnolia bloom in the Garden

Atlanta has almost as many magnolia trees as Florida has palm trees--they’re all over the place. This bloom is best admired on the tree, as its beauty fades quickly after it is taken off the branch. If the magnolia is not my very favorite flower, it's in the top two.