Botanical Garden to include skyline views by Jeff Martin, Tulsa World

Sweeping views of the Tulsa skyline and surrounding city will be incorporated into the design of the Oklahoma Centennial botanical Garden.

The Osage Hills setting, atop one of the highest points in the metro area, offers dramatic views of Tulsa’s high-rises.

Geoffrey Rausch, a landscape architect who has helped design botanical gardens throughout the United States, said he has never seen anything like it.

“There may be a couple of other places in the country where this exists…but it’s something you always wish for but rarely get.”

The Tulsa site is one of those rare spots, and Rausch intends to make the most of it. His Pittsburg firm is developing a master plan for the Oklahoma Centennial Botanical Garden.

“The land forms and the views and the connections back to the city are marvelous,” Rausch said.
Rausch’s resume includes work on more than 50 botanical gardens and arboreta, including the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis and other major gardens such as the U.S. National Arboretum and gardens in Chicago and Denver. “In a physical sense, gardens are about creating outdoor experiences,” he said. “When you have the hills and the valleys, it makes it much easier to create experiences.”

Many botanical gardens are created on donated land that may not be suitable for residential or business development. Planners must then make the most with the land they have, even if it is an old industrial area or swampland, for instance.

The site of Tulsa’s planned garden is a wooded area about seven miles northwest of downtown at 5323 West 31st Street North, the site of the former Williams Learning Center and lodge. The lodge has been renamed Post Oak Lodge.

Organizers hope to raise $40 million for the project, and its board is seeking $15 million from the state.
The garden is expected to open in 2007, which also marks Oklahoma’s 100th birthday. A master plan for the garden will be in place this year, Rausch said.

Planners envision a cultural center with many opportunities for research and education.

The Missouri Botanical Garden “is on an equal par with the St. Louis Symphony or the big art museum they have,” Rausch said.

A botanical garden’s collection of plants is similar to collections housed in museums “except they are alive.”

Rausch said the Tulsa garden will be built in phases.

Typically, a garden will have a visitor’s center in the central portion, and “around the visitor’s center you have various intensities or gardens.” Near the visitor’s center, land is often relatively flat to allow access for many people.

“Then you reach out into the site and create loop walks,” Rausch said.

“The farther out you go, the more peace and serenity you can find.”

Education will be a major part of any master plan, Rausch said.

“I can envision school buses galore coming up that hill and master gardeners meeting them and just having unbelievable experiences,” said D.C. Coston, associate director of Oklahoma’s State University’s Oklahoma Agricultural Experiment Station.

The research and educational components of the garden will include plant studies and horticultural programs to be developed through a partnership of OSU, Tulsa Community College and Tulsa Technology Center.

Employees and volunteers work closely with local schools at the Missouri Botanical Garden. It provides programs for 108,000 children and 30,000 adults each year, including more than 2,700 teachers, according to employees there.

“If you get down to the basics of a botanical garden, you teach people to love plants and respect them,” Rausch said.

For more information, please call the Oklahoma Centennial Botanical Garden at (918) 728-2707.