Garden Gratitude

“Let the garden speak to you. Then write from your heart.”

At Lotusland’s Members Appreciation Day, that invitation became the spirit of the afternoon as nearly 200 members, supporters, trustees and neighbors gathered across the Garden’s 37 acres.

Presenting Sponsor Leslie S. Thomas was also celebrating her birthday. A cake appeared, the crowd sang “Happy Birthday,” and the Great Lawn took on the easy charm of what one Lotusland staffer called “very much like a neighborhood barbecue” – even a “block party.”

That was precisely the point. “It’s really meant to nurture our community,” the staffer said, describing an afternoon to “eat and drink and be merry,” while enjoying games, plants, and one another.

Members did exactly that. Cornhole, badminton, cricket and bubbles dotted the lawn; guests potted succulents and wrote “Love Letters to Lotusland,” hanging them from twine beneath the oak tree like botanical valentines. Glendessary Jam – whose fiddler is the associate curator of the Living Collection and Nursery manager, Anna Bower – supplied old-time music. Omni Events served grilled wild salmon, pesto chicken, seasonal vegetables and peach cobbler à la mode, with wine from Casita de Bravo.

Among the familiar faces were Lynn Cunningham Brown and Chris Brown, David M. Jones, Pat Caird, Kia McInerny, Mitchell Lipowski and Rachael Douglas.

One poignant family story belonged to Liz and Violet Worgan and Joseph Burtness, who spent time at Lotusland while remembering George Burtness, a longtime Japanese Garden volunteer and devoted master gardener who died in June. His family gathered at a place he had loved and supported.

The appreciation runs both ways: public admission provides only about 15% of Lotusland’s annual operating expenses, making members, and philanthropy essential to its care.

With 29 species of waterlilies represented in the ponds, perhaps the love-letter station said it best: “Your words become part of the garden’s heartbeat – a living letter in bloom.”