An anonymous donor’s Christmas Eve gift of $1 million helped the years-in-the-making Botanical Garden of the Piedmont surpass its $2 million fundraising goal.

The long-anticipated Botanical Garden of the Piedmont is just $500,000 away from reaching its next fundraising benchmark ahead of its planned ground-breaking next year.

On Christmas Eve this past year, the Charlottesville garden received a $1 million gift from an anonymous donor that helped it surpass its $2 million Capital Campaign Challenge by $500,000. The garden’s leadership decided to view the remaining $500,000 as a new fundraising challenge, and donors have until March 31 to match the amount.

Part of the public garden project’s appeal is the fact that one does not have to be a gardener or plant aficionado to enjoy the space. The Botanical Garden of the Piedmont is growing into a place for simple strolls, rigorous play, educational events, and all kinds of community gatherings, too.

“Raising money for it is not painful. It’s really just a wonderful gathering place,” Consi Palmer, president of the garden’s board of directors, told The Daily Progress. “It’s a garden for people who don’t have a garden. There’s no other public garden that’s free of charge that people can explore plants that are native to the Piedmont.”
The first phase of construction for the Melbourne Road site will include a parking plaza with a rain garden designed to collect and filter stormwater that will be used to irrigate the garden’s plantings.

Also planned for the first phase is the Garden Pavilion, the site’s first permanent structure. The pavilion will provide heated and air-conditioned event space throughout the year for garden events and rentals; plans include a wetlab area and restrooms.

The Discovery Garden, to be built around the central Gardening Glen, is another first-phase project. The Gardening Glen will provide space for classes, story times, support groups and all kinds of meetings; it will be designed to accommodate both outdoor play and quiet events for all ages.
Among the Discovery Garden’s features will be a variety of reading nooks and other small gathering areas that will be conducive to quiet reflection, as well as raised planting beds and even some edible landscaping. For more boisterous activities, there will be play structures built from natural materials, as well as a boulder scramble and grassy mounds.

Pathways with gentle grades below 5 degrees will keep stroller and wheelchair use comfortable and “will turn this property into a real gem,” Palmer said.

And as the garden grows, “we anticipate and envision a café and a gift shop,” Palmer said, which will give residents a location to suggest when friends say, ” ‘Let’s get some coffee and go for a walk.'”

Donor Carol Angle made the initial $1.5 million challenge in 2021, which the garden met in six months. Angle served as a pediatrician on a medical faculty in Omaha for 46 years before moving to Charlottesville to be near her son, Dr. John Angle, and closer to daughters Dr. Marcia Angle of Durham, North Carolina, and Monica Angle, an artist in Buffalo, New York.

Angle made a second gift of $2 million to the Botanical Garden of the Piedmont in 2024. Although Angle did not require a matching component for her gift, the garden’s organizers decided to challenge the Charlottesville community to match the amount by Dec. 31, 2024.

Even before the bulk of construction has begun, the garden is getting plenty of visitors and use. Upcoming events on the calendar at piedmontgarden.org include educational event assistant training on Friday, Monday’s garden site tour and deadline for a teen photography contest and an invasive plant walk on Feb. 27. For families who like to plan ahead, Little Nature Explorers in the Garden on March 25 will be focusing on frogs and toads.

Children and families have been participating in a variety of events at the garden, which Palmer said already is an appealing place for imaginative play and discovery. A program that’s being planned for the space, Every Kindergartner in the Garden, will help make sure that children from many different kinds of neighborhoods can stretch their legs, check out fascinating insects and learn to identify the plants they see.

“It’s a mile and a half from the center of town. It won’t be a plastic playground,” Palmer said. “There will be natural play areas where children can play.”
Breaking ground in 2026 may seem like a quite a wait, but gardeners are known for playing a long game, not only envisioning what to plant where but also anticipating what can bloom. Nurturing community is part of the plan.

While waiting for the Botanical Garden’s components to be built, Palmer said, visitors can stop by to amble around and get acquainted with the space. People also can help by getting on mailing lists, following the garden on social media and signing up as volunteers. Donations of any size can help meet the March 31 challenge, Palmer said.