Waterfront Botanical Gardens turns 5 — determined to be profitable and forever green.

The older lessons being taught to the newer gardeners came with some needed guidelines:  Peanuts don’t grow in clear plastic bags at Kroger. Apple pies do sort of begin on trees, and trees themselves are vital to a healthy planet.

The lessons were being taught at Louisville’s 23-acre Waterfront Botanical Gardens off Frankfort Avenue. Built on a former landfill, the gardens is celebrating its fifth anniversary this year. The students, ages three, four and five, were clustered on a carpet decorated in big green leaves while being read children’s books about, well, peanuts, apple pies and trees. With their Moms, Grandmothers and occasional Great-Grandmothers sitting on the floor and chairs behind them - the kids by far the most squirmy of the bunch.

Stories and crafts for kids

The bi-weekly reading programs are labeled Gardens Storytime. They always include two colorful stories and a nature-inspired activity, the most recent featuring a “Little Naturalists” book about former slave George Washington Carver and his pioneering work on 125 uses of peanuts as food.

This was the  “Fairy Craft” portion of the morning. It included about 25 kids hunched over tables with paper plates, crayons, scissors, glue and short pieces of yarn in front of them. The paper plates were the peanut-growing canvasses. The kids colored blue skies and brown dirt fields on the plates, then cut out green peanut plants which they glued more or less carefully onto the dirt.

Then, because peanuts grow underground, they glued pieces of yarn to the plants imitating the “pegs” that push underground from the plant to produce peanuts. Then, Big Finish, the kids cut out paper peanuts and glued them to the yarn.

At least in theory. Not always in fact with three-year-olds and glue. The bigger picture being that the kids did learn that peanuts – which can come with some allergy issues – are not grown in clear plastic bags at Kroger.

Forever green at Waterfront Botanical Gardens

The Waterfront Botanical Garden is moving into 2024 with the theme “Forever Green.” Which included a discussion about Carver’s book and his work, resulting in one very satisfactory response.

“I didn’t know that,” one child offered, “but because you told me that, now I know it, too.”

Next up two retired teachers, Ann Schwartz and Beth Ralston, using well-practiced inflections, pauses and move-ahead moments, read to the kids from “Bring Me Some Apples and I’ll Make You a Pie” and “Wangari’s Trees of Peace.”

Both books dealt with The Big Gardening Picture. The former book was about a little girl who lived on a farm in the south and picked apples which then became apple pies. The girl moved on through the seasons to pick strawberries, blackberries, tomatoes and peaches with the same tasty results.

“When are tomatoes the best?” one of the teachers asked..

“When they taste good,” came an answer.

“What’s in a bee hive?”

“Honey.”

The “Trees of Peace” book was based on a story of how a young woman returned home to  her native Kenya, and, seeing so many trees had been destroyed while she was gone, started a program to restore them.

What was the benefit of that? the students were asked.

“When the trees are all gone,” came an answer, “there are no birds.”

After the Storytime ended, some of the listeners moved outside to walk the gardens to see what spring had to offer in person. Quite a bit, actually. Downtown Louisville rose in the distance – a view not visible in many parts of town -  and beyond it the somber Southern Indiana knobs. The nearest blooming  colors were a yellow witch hazel and pink-and-white hellebores, with a few golden daffodils warming to the occasion. One little girl, her yellow ponytail popping up over her head, carefully bent over to touch a tiny flower.

Waterfron Botanical Gardens is under new leadership

The garden has undergone some recent administrative changes. Louisville native Philip Koester, who has led marketing and development initiatives at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Lyra Opera in Chicago, was named the garden’s President and CEO. Koester also held senior marketing positions with the Kentucky Opera and Louisville Ballet.

On hand for the Storytime readings was Donna Krabill, newly hired as Chief Operating & Programming Officer at the gardens. She said there will be more flower exhibits, concerts, adult classes, tours and hands-on gardening experiences for all residents of Louisville and Southern Indiana. The Waterfront Botanical Gardens closed its Avish Estate satellite operation on River Road to consolidate these events.

Krabill is well-versed in botanic gardens. Her mother was a florist. Krabill was teaching fifth grade science in Florida when she was one of six teachers selected for a program called The Jason Project. It was founded by the oceanographer Dr. Robert Ballard, who in 1986 found the wreck of the Titanic. The project’s purpose is to lead students into real world environmental situations while being mentored by scientists from organizations like NASA, NOAA and the National Geographic Society.

Krabill soon found herself doing radio broadcasts from Amazon Rain Forest while standing on a walkway about 100 feet above it. The view from up there included her future.

“I had this moment,” she said. “It sounds kind of silly, but I just mentally zoomed way up and I could see down below with a bird’s eye. No boundaries. No borders. Just a beautiful carpet of green.”

A life-changing moment. Green it was. Green it would be. She would return part-time to the Amazon for seven years, teach classes there. She moved on to 20 years of executive programming and education positions at the Huntsville Botanical Garden, the Norfolk Botanical Gardens and the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota. She also worked in fundraising  and creating traveling garden exhibits.

Her first task in Louisville is to take stock of the garden’s past and plan its future. She will combine cost analysis with the expansion of the education programs, determine what works best and be profitable in a Forever Green way.

“This is our fifth anniversary,” she said, “and we want to celebrate that. We want to do a lot more with horticulture and gardening conservation. I just fell in love with the master plan here and what they were doing.“

Continuing garden programs will include the  Annual Fascinator Affair, a Derby-tilted fashion show and luncheon fund-raiser on April 11, along with the kaleidoscope Family Festival and a special Fifth Birthday Party in October.

Japanese Garden has not been forgotten

Waterfront Botanical Gardens is actively fundraising to complete the Japanese Garden. Krabill stressed the garden will be built in phases. The first phase will be a Bonsai Garden pavilion, displaying on a rotating basis those perfectly pruned century-old trees the gardens already own, including some larger bonsai trees planted in the ground.

Bonsai collector  and board member Joe Graviss  said the garden will have 30 to 50 bonsai trees on display at any one time except winter, “an oasis of peace and tranquility in the heart of Louisville.”

A tent will be erected next to the Ellen T. Leslie classrooms to serve as additional education space, a place where kids can get their hands even more dirty. There are plans to build a tree allée’ and Beargrass Creek Overlook.

The garden’s flowers, shrubs and trees all  grow in the path of Andrew Hagerty, horticulture director. He has  been with the gardens all of its five years, digging, weeding, planting , teaching classes and welcoming volunteers.

Hagerty can get lyrical about his work and the flowers of spring, including hundreds of tulips planted in huge beds and around fountains:

“Fortunately,” he wrote in an explanation, “most of our bulbs have yet to bloom and we will expect to see them throughout the spring  as we have planted early, mid, and late season bulbs to help celebrate the  next growing season.

“We will also see blooms of creeping phlox and carnations as they wake up from their winter’s slumber. We look forward to new projects that will expand our ability to fulfill our mission to educate the public about the splendor of plants and give more access to places of beauty for family to enjoy.”

Nor have the kids formerly sitting inside putting crayons to paper plates been forgotten. An outdoor “natural playground” of stones, logs, interesting plants and other basic materials will be created near the Leslie Building. It will include chairs and benches for adults to watch the children play.

Again.

There is no admission fee at the  Waterfront Botanical Gardens. For more information and hours go to waterfrontgardens.org

Bob Hill was a Louisville Times and Courier Journal feature writer and columnist for 33 years.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Waterfront Botanical Garden turns 5. Once a landfill now a paradise.