The Nature Coast Botanical Gardens are back open for business. After shutting down earlier this month due to an insurance issue, the all-volunteer organization obtained new liability insurance on August 20 and is ready to reopen their doors. The gardens are once again available to everyone from nature lovers to wedding parties.
“That’s a beautiful spot,” said Beth Narverud, Chairwoman of Hernando’s Board of County Commissioners. “People go for pictures for everything. It is a valued part of the community similar to the fountain […] and everybody goes there to take prom pictures, wedding pictures, just to have a day out in nature and learn things. It is a beautiful facility if anybody hasn’t been there […]”
Initially leased from the county in 1993, the Spring Hill Garden Club entered into a 99-year lease agreement with the Board of County Commissioners for the acreage on Parker Avenue in 1994. The deal would only cost one dollar a year to retain the use of the new property, and the club would trade their previous piece of land at the Lake House on Kenlake Avenue for the new one.
After ground was broken in 1995, Jim Erickson and Tom Braun helped to install the sprinkler system and electricity. Ed Howels would later become the first Garden/Project Manager in 2001 before the remaining land was cleared and the Nature Coast Botanical Gardens (formerly known as the Hernando County Botanical Gardens) was established. Six gardens were complete by 2004, with more on the way. Ten “pioneers” helped to create these first six gardens:
Ed Howells, Jeannie and Jim Erickson, Ethyl deValk, Maggie Merl, Gloria Nadeau, Tom Braun, Sue Walsh, Don Kubiak, Dick Keller
Each new garden began with a donation of at least $1000. Sue Walsh designed the Butterfly Garden which was built with funding from the Florida Yards and Neighbors Program, the Waterfall Garden was built by Rick and Tina Burkett (Burkett Pond Builders) and the Ornamental Grasses Garden was dug by Jim Erickson at the request of deValk in the hopes of it becoming a pond. The pond never filled in, so a perplexing hole in the ground remained that left many visitors asking questions about its origin for years.
It is an oddity and a fun mystery for a place that the Botanical Gardens staff calls “the best-kept secret in Hernando County,” said Nursery Manager Kathy Wolfe. “It is amazing how many people come in here and they walk in and go, ‘I’ve lived here for 25 years, and I never knew this place existed’ […] This is where I come to just forget about anything else that may be going on in your life. Dig in the dirt or whatever. It’s very peaceful and a lot of very nice people.”
The four-and-a-half-acre oasis is not only a great place to walk a dog, but it hosts a myriad of events year-round as well. Birthday parties, anniversaries, elopements, and celebrations of life are all accommodated with the gardens seeing their highest volume of events taking place in the summer. Just make sure to bring your bug spray.
While the gardens have been closed, the staff have taken the opportunity to have all of the paths that wind through the 4.5-acre nature walk repaired and resurfaced to ensure a smooth and safe excursion through the foliage. Now that the gardens are once again open, they will remain so every day of the year from dawn to dusk. The nursery, however, is only open on Mondays and Saturdays from 9 am until noon.
As most of the members are of an advanced age, they have no one to pass the reigns to when the current members decide they are ready to hang up their trowels. Wolfe and company would love a younger crop of passionate planters to join in and get their hands in the soil.
