2020-05-08 Fri

Norfolk Botanical Garden is featured on a United States Postage Forever stamp!

The Garden is a part of the upcoming "American Gardens” series. The stamp depicts a photograph of the Bicentennial Rose Garden, one of the largest rose gardens on the East Coast. This garden is said to peak in early May just in time for Mother’s Day and continues blooming throughout the summer and fall.

The Norfolk Botanical Garden was founded through the collaboration between Norfolk City Manager Thomas P. Thompson and horticulturalists Frederic Heutte. In 1938, the pair were granted 75 acres of high, wooded ground plus 75 acres of the reservoir for a city garden. Later that year, under a Works Progress Administration (WPA) grant, 200 African-American women and 20 men cleared the site. By March 1939, several thousand miscellaneous shrubs and trees, and 100 bushels of daffodils had been planted.

In 1958, the Old Dominion Horticultural Society took over maintenance and changed the garden's name to Norfolk Botanical Garden. The garden did at one point contain 175 acres, but the neighboring Norfolk International Airport expanded and took away 20 acres. A number of gardens were added through the 1950s and 1960s, including a Japanese garden, desert plants garden, colonial garden, and rose garden. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.

Image Courtesy: wtkr.com