Thanks all for the wonderful notes on the children's garden project. 
Veronica Lane did get back to me with her correct email address and apparently some of the comments were well received in there board meeting last night. She said it really opened some of their eyes on how to get more families involved and possible increase there attendance.

To answer a few of the questions that I got:
1. The classroom building (shown on my web site) was part of this garden project but was paid for separately. It was not part of the $1.250, 000.00 per acre cost of the garden and exhibits. It is a 3,000 GSF building and cost about $420,000. It has one large "Y" shaped classroom that can be partitioned off into two rooms to hold about 40 people at tables (kids)  each. It has office space for the director and staff, work rooms, storage, vending area and of course handicapped accessible rest rooms. The exterior amphitheater "performances stage" is outside the back of the building and by the building's"x" shape two sides of the building form the theatre sides. Seating is on a sloping grass knoll. When the vines grow up and over the wire trellis attached to the building, a natural canopy for shading will occur.
 
2.  No the garden was not able to transplant some of its mature trees from their 300 acre site to this site. Mature trees and shrubs do not transplant very well here with any kind of survivability. This is also the unfortunate part of a new garden. It will take several years for some species to mature. Some plants indigenous to some countries will not survive here at all so the garden did have to take some liberties in swapping out similar plants in some areas. However they were able to plant some non native species but must wrap and heat tape them for winter survival. 
 
3. Unfortunately like most museums they could not get all the exhibitry they wanted at opening day for their budget. They plan to add more exhibits each quarter as their budgets allow. It will be sort of like having a changing gallery where they will be able to add new exhibitry every three months. This way the garden will have a fresh look every few months to selected areas. Each site has interactive exhibits that are relative to the region they are located in. The exhibit areas are: Global Garden, Asia Garden, World Plants Garden, South America Rainforest, Mediterranean Chaparral, North America Deciduous Forest, Asian Taiga, Africa Savannah, Australian Desert, and Wetlands.

4. Yes the garden was very lucky that just before the grand opening day the remnants of the hurricane did drop over 9" of rain here in a 4 hour period. Luckily the garden is surrounded by a very large fresh water lake that did overflow its banks by several feet. No Atlantic salt water got in so most planes survived. Some did not and were replaced in two days.
I must laugh at us here in Tidewater Virginia as Virginia Beach is very flat. I actually live in an area called Hill Top as we are 16 feet above sea level. It’s the highest natural area around. Because of that we all have a problem that when we go over a tall overpass, we must be careful to not get a nose bleed from the altitude change. Norfolk did get a lot of flooding but we were hi and dry



William M. Greaves
Architects iN Design
1232 Wivenhoe Court
Virginia Beach, Virginia 23454
[log in to unmask]
www.architectsindesign.com
757-496-6489

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