The Burlingame Native Plant Garden on the Oklawaha Greenway features over 30 varieties of native shrubs, trees, grasses, wildflowers, and ferns. The garden surrounds the red kiosk at the intersection of the Greenway and the trail to Patton Park.
On April 9th, 2022, the garden was decidated to the memory of Westcott Burlingame III, a local nurseryman, lecturer and environmentalist. Wes enthusiastically promoted the use of native plantings in private and public gardens throughout Henderson County. As a member of the Hendersonville Tree Board, he led Native Tree Walks on the Greenway and developed its pollinator beds.
The Garden is a community effort with plants contributed by Conserving Carolina, Bullington Gardens, the Hendersonville Tree Board, Asheville Botanical Garden and Chatooga Gardens, along with many private gardeners. If you would like to volunteer to help maintain the garden, see Volunteer under the Support menu.
Tax deductible donations for the garden can be made through MountainTrue via the Friends of the Oklawaha Greenway website at friendsofoklawaha.org. Please make sure all donations are clearly marked "Friends of Oklawaha for Burlingame Memorial Garden" by using the prompt "Is there anything you want us to know?" on the last screen of the donation's processing.
All plants were carefully selected to assure year-around interest for human visitors, as well as a food source for bees, butterflies and birds.
New plant labels, hand-crafted by volunteers Joe Prescott and Victoria Price, provide both the common name and the botanical name for the plants. Volunteers spend two hours a month on the first Friday of each non-winter month maintaining the garden.
The gardeners compiled a list of all the plants in the Burlingame Native Plant Garden as of Fall, 2023. They identified 74 species total!
See the plant list (pdf; will open in a new tab/window)