Santa Fe Botanical Garden at Museum Hill
Completed Kearny's Gap Bridge at SFBG at Museum Hill (Photo: Cathy Gronquist)
The historic Kearny’s Gap Bridge now spans the Arroyo de los Pinos in the heart of our Botanical Garden at Museum Hill. Thank you to Peter Brill, President of PBI Construction Consulting, (our Owner’s Representative) and contractor A.S. Horner of Albuquerque for a job well done.
We will schedule a ribbon cutting and public event in the Spring of 2012. At that time, we will also officially open the arroyo bike/hike trail system.
Please make a reservation online if you would like to walk the site during the holiday season. We encourage you to bring along friends we can cultivate for future involvement as members or donors – help us spread the word by showing others how wonderful this bridge is in the heart of our future Botanical Garden.
A Living Collection, a Lasting Legacy
The Santa Fe Botanical Garden at Museum Hill, designed by landscape architect W. Gary Smith, will integrate the natural and the man-made, a location of natural beauty and environmental interest transformed by excellent garden design, horticultural practice and architecture.
Covering more than 12 acres, the Santa Fe Botanical Garden at Museum Hill will contain four separate but integrated garden experiences – The Orchard Gardens, The Naturalistic Gardens, The Courtyard Gardens and the Arroyo Trails – each reflecting different aspects of the Northern New Mexico landscape and centuries of human habitation.
Throughout the gardens native plants will be mixed with appropriate non-natives, all selected to demonstrate the variety and richness that can be achieved even in this region of scarce water.
Visitors will enter the Botanical Garden through the Orchard Gardens. The centerpiece fruit orchard will be flanked by a meadow garden and a dry garden. The orchard will be surrounded by a rugged retaining wall on three sides as it nestles into the hillside.
Tour the future site of the Orchard Gardens
Sign up for free walking site tours either by calling 505-471-9103 or emailing cristina@santafebotanicalgarden.org. For more information about the Botanical Garden at Museum Hill, please call Executive Director Linda Milbourn at 471-9103 or email at linda@santafebotanicalgarden.org
More about the Santa Fe Botanical Garden at Museum Hill
Schematic drawing of the Orchard Gardens - click to learn more
For more than 20 years and with the critical support of its 300 active volunteers the Santa Fe Botanical Garden (SFBG) has been a part of the community providing places of reflection, wonder and education for young and old alike. Each of the SFBG’s two existing locations – the Leonora Curtin Wetland Preserve and the Ortiz Mountains Educational Preserve – tell the story of unique aspects of Northern New Mexico geology, botany and cultural history. The creation of the Santa Fe Botanical Garden at Museum Hill ushers in a new era of educational opportunities and community services offered by the Botanical Garden.
The Orchard Gardens with an orchard of fruit trees as its centerpiece is the entry point for visitors. Flanked by a meadow garden and a dry garden the orchard will be surrounded by a rugged retaining wall on three sides as it nestles into the hillside.
The Courtyard Gardens is comprised of a series of five courtyards perched on the edge of the Arroyo de los Pinos. Each courtyard will have its own character reflecting an aspect of the cultural history of Santa Fe.
The Naturalistic Gardens, accessed via a pedestrian bridge, sits on the far side of an arroyo. Freer in form and contemporary in spirit, these gardens will integrate art and landscape architecture including an outdoor classroom.
The Arroyo Trails, covering eight acres, is the largest single area of the Santa Fe Botanical Garden at Museum Hill. Demonstrating the effectiveness of the latest arroyo restoration techniques the Arroyo Trails provides a place to enjoy the natural beauty of the site and experience the increasing diversity of plants and wildlife as the arroyo heals itself over time.
Combining beauty and responsibility, the Santa Fe Botanical Garden at Museum Hill will be a place that restores the landscape, soothes the spirit and educates by example.
Stewardship through Service Learning
Learn about how SFBG involves local eighth grade students in weekly hands-on projects. Service Learning >>
In the news…
November 5, 2011: A Time to Dig > (PDF 141 kb)
It’s been a long time coming. In front of a small crowd of dignitaries and supporters, representatives of the Santa Fe Botanical Garden finally broke ground on their Museum Hill site Friday morning, after about eight years of planning. The golden shovels came out and people clustered for pictures by the Arroyo de los Pinos, where the garden’s first phase of construction will begin later this year…
May 20, 2011: In Bloom > (PDF 79.1 kb)
Don’t let the lack of paintings fool you, the Santa Fe Botanical Garden at Museum Hill slated to open next year is a museum through and through—only one that beautifully exhibits flowers, grasses and trees…
May 18, 2011: Santa Fe Botanical Garden is an oasis on the horizon > (PDF 61.3 kb)
Gary Smith designed the Santa Fe Botanical Garden at Museum Hill with an artist’s cognizance. ‘I like to say the garden is more like dance or more like music, in that it has rhythm and meter and it happens over time,’ he said. ‘Garden design is the slowest of the performance arts.’…
May 18, 2011: A Desert Oasis > (PDF 278 kb)
Plant life from South Africa, New Zealand and the Middle East will find its way into Santa Fe’s first botanical garden. It’ll be home to fruit trees, cactuses, flowers, a xeric lawn, an outdoor classroom, an ethnobotanical walk and a courtyard for parties called “The Jewel Box.”…
RSS Feed