Manager's Message
by Judy Zatsick, Manager, Green Spring Gardens
Happy New Year!
2022 is going to be an exciting year at Green Spring Gardens. Although the coronavirus continues to challenge us, we have become nimble at managing those challenges and have developed strategies to offer the same programs and services you have come to enjoy. We will be offering some of our most popular programs-several on hold since the pandemic began-as well as many new events you won’t want to miss. It feels great to flex our gardening muscles in the new year.
Judy Zatsick. Photo credit: Ben Cohen.
Our popular winter lecture series is off to a great start. Although we love to meet in person, we actually can serve more guests in the virtual format. Our facilities can accommodate up to 100 guests. Our most recent lecture, Attracting Birds to your Garden with Native Shrubs, by Ann Little, drew over 140 guests. We love that we can share this important message with a wider audience by going virtual.
Green Spring Gardens will be celebrating several milestone anniversaries this year. As we pause to recall earlier times, we have an opportunity to appreciate the connections and partnerships that have fostered and allowed Green Spring to grow into the bustling, plant-focused public garden and community that we are.
80 years ago: Belinda and Michael Straight purchased the historic house and hired architect Walter Macomber to complete interior renovations to the dwelling. Their friend, renowned American landscape designer Beatrix Farrand, created a planting design for the property surrounding their home, including the C-shaped boxwood hedge and stacked stone wall behind the home. The Straights generously donated their property to the Fairfax County Park Authority to preserve it. That partnership, and the work of many volunteers and supporters, led to the creation of Green Spring Gardens.
40 years ago: Green Spring Gardens opened shop when the horticulture center and glasshouse were constructed. The horticultural center was little more than a few offices with the attached glasshouse, which was used for plant propagation. Twenty parking spaces were included in the project. Today our programming and events have grown to such an extent that our expanded parking area no longer accommodates our guests. Our generous neighbors at Pinecrest Office Park allow us to use their space for overflow parking.
20 years ago: Virginia Cooperative Extension established the Green Spring Master Gardener Program. The program graduates participants interested in educating others about gardening. Today Green Spring Master gardeners are contributing to programming, answering gardening questions, and helping tend to specific garden initiatives.
In addition to our regular programming, we will be celebrating these anniversaries this year with projects and events.
The FROGS annual appeal to make Green Spring greener will allow us to restore the mixed border at the base of the boxwood hedge that Farrand designed. Funded by the Garden Club of Virginia in the spirit of Beatrix Farrand, it needs redefinition. We will purchase plants to refine and restore that design.
Judith Tankard, renowned landscape historian, has written extensively on Beatrix Farrand. She is publishing an updated book on the life of the designer. She will be giving a lecture at Green Spring in April to share new knowledge about the contributions of this remarkable designer.
We continue to develop plans for our moon gate project, which takes its inspiration from Farrand’s designs of gardens in Maine and nearby Dumbarton Oaks.
Other programs you won’t want to miss include Poetry Month, Spring Garden Day with its big plant sale, continued research on enslaved people at Green Spring, a photo contest featuring Green Spring, and more! All of these events require the teamwork of staff and the generous time of our Green Spring community.
It is partnerships—whether it’s the Straight family with Beatrix Farrand or with our amazing Friends of Green Spring, the Garden Club of Virginia, the Master Gardeners, and all the volunteers and community members who support us with time, money, and spirit—that make Green Spring Gardens the wonderful and unique place that it is.
