Changes may bloom

at Boone Native Gardens
By Frank Ruggiero
ruggiero@wataugademocrat.com

Renovation may soon be growing at the Daniel Boone Native Gardens.

The Boone Town Council discussed improvements concerning visitor safety and maintenance at the area gardens, the property for which is owned by the town of Boone and located adjacent to Horn in the West.

In a letter from Nan Chase, chairwoman of the Daniel Boone Native Gardens board, to the council, Chase stated visitor attendance has grown throughout the last three years, with 2007 attendance at 3,130, excluding weddings and a Garden Club of North Carolina tour.

Visitors, Chase said, traveled from 95 cities in North Carolina, 36 states besides North Carolina, and five other countries.

This early in the year, she continued, nearly a dozen weddings are already scheduled, as well as large group tour for May.

“In the last couple of years, we have really worked through a backlog of big maintenance issues with the garden, so now we’re able to look and see some of our long-range needs,” Chase said.

One such need involves public safety. The stairs leading from the main garden level to the rock garden have no handrail, and the front entry steps are set into unstable pea gravel.

“Not only is that unsightly, but it’s just not working as a good surface for older visitors to enter the gardens,” Chase said of the front steps.

The gardens board requested that funding be budgeted to remedy both problems.

The board also requested the town to take over lawn-mowing duties at the gardens, and Chase said Brad Vines, town landscape specialist, “indicated his willingness to consider adding the gardens to his mowing schedule,” considering the surrounding properties are mowed by the town.

Changing the topic from green grass to black top, Chase said the parking lot also needs resurfacing, which would improve the gardens’ aesthetics while preventing the lot from deteriorating any further.

The bathrooms would also require a good update, she said, calling them “fairly primitive” and inadequate, in that they don’t meet Americans with Disabilities Act standards. If the town moves to improve the bathroom facilities at Horn in the West, the board would request the gardens be included in the process, by way of a new building or a shared building for both organizations.

Council member Lynne Mason said the board’s request seemed reasonable.

Council member Stephen Phillips asked how many additional hours lawn-mowing at the gardens would entail.

Blake Brown, director of Boone Public Works, said it would take an extra four work hours a week, since lawn-mowing in a garden involves delicate work and maneuvering.

“But our plate’s getting pretty full,” Brown admitted, saying the town’s lawn-mowing is performed by only two staff members, and their workload has already increased from one day of mowing to five.

He suggested looking for part-time help from students in Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute’s horticulture program.

Repairs to the front entry steps would cost about $2,500, Brown said, adding that the process would be time-consuming, in that the existing stones would have to be lifted and then placed back down.

He said a rail could be placed on the steps that would match the gardens’ other handrails, and though Chase didn’t mention it, he said the gardens’ fence is falling into disrepair. The rails are made of old chestnut, dating back to the 1940s.

Mason asked if these were issues that should be immediately addressed, or if they could be included in next year’s budget. Brown said next year’s budget would do, though some tasks could be completed between now and summertime.