National Garden Blooms At Last

A view of the First Ladies Water Garden at the new National Garden. (Melina Mara - Melina Mara/TWP)

The Butterfly Garden is a discrete terraced garden with an arbor, benches and the potential to become a charming oasis, planted as it is with nectar-bearing plants that will draw butterflies. Even with its fresh plantings, monarchs and buckeyes and other butterflies have already found the place. This garden was paid for by the Garden Club of America, which mobilized local chapters throughout the United States to raise money.

The Regional Garden is the rather dull name for the largest part of the project, a meandering path through seven large beds of native trees, shrubs, grasses and perennials. The path crosses a stream and ends at a small amphitheater whose seats are fashioned from marble steps that once formed part of the Capitol.

The view back from the amphitheater seats is the choicest in the garden and takes in the Capitol dome and the crystal palace of the Botanic Garden. The Regional Garden should fill out wonderfully without obscuring these landmarks.

Holly Shimizu, director of the Botanic Garden, chose one of the institution's most gifted horticulturists, Bill McLaughlin, to put together the seven beds of the Regional Garden. They are a plant lover's delight and full of little-known indigenous species and varieties that will now find a broad audience.

McLaughlin has planted that section with plants that are native from New Jersey to North Carolina, and then grouped them by habitat -- some from the piedmont and others from the coastal plain. They are further delineated by their place in what he calls the moisture gradient, essentially how much water they need. They will be hand-watered until established. McLaughlin turned to Hagedorn's company to create soil mixes that were hauled in (and the nasty clay that was there hauled out). McLaughlin also worked with donor and longtime Washington gardener Cynthia Helms, widow of former CIA director Richard Helms, in selecting trees.

McLaughlin has purposefully put in small plants. Other showcase gardens on the Mall, by contrast, have opened with grossly oversize trees to give an instant effect, but ultimately create a cluttered landscape.

The National Garden is meant to become an outdoor classroom where kids and adults alike learn about nature and how to use it to enrich their lives. Perhaps the garden's most valuable first lesson is that young gardens are meant to look raw and callow, that plants do better when they are installed small, and that we need to grant plants, and ourselves, time to see how it all comes together.

It will take two years for the herbaceous plants to fill out, five for the shrubs to approach maturity and at least as long for the trees to have presence. "We have allowed room for it to grow," Shimizu said. "When you move to a new place you don't know, you have to settle in, and plants are the same way."

Against this natural garden, the formal rose garden seems even more an anachronism, as does the idea that plants need pesticides and watering to survive. Ironically, the delays in building the garden have brought it into sync with gardening sensibilities that have changed fundamentally since Mary Johnston began her quest. Today, gardeners are far more likely to take nature as their guide in assembling eco-friendly gardens.

McLaughlin said the roses were picked for their ability to stand up to the tough Washington climate, and the ones that don't thrive will be culled. But he and Shimizu profess a soft spot for the rose garden. "That's where this whole thing started," Shimizu said.

The National Garden will be open for a family festival today from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., then daily, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free. 100 Maryland Ave. SW. (It is bounded by Third Street, Independence Avenue and Maryland Avenue SW.)