Atlanta Botanical Garden

Institution Code: ATLAN

International Agenda Registration: N

BGCI Member: Y

The Atlanta Botanical Garden is an urban, non-profit Garden located just three miles from the city center in midtown Atlanta. Because of its proximity to downtown, the Garden is well situated and hosts a wide variety of public and private events and exhibitions. It occupies 30-acres adjacent to Piedmont Park, the most heavily-used public park in the city. The Garden encompasses 13 acres of woodland and 15 acres of cultivated gardens. Included among these gardens are two acres for the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Children’s Garden (1999), along with the Dorothy Chapman Fuqua Conservatory (1989), the Fuqua Orchid Center and Center for Education and Conservation(2002), Gardenhouse, the administrative center (1985), and Mershon Hall for youth education and meeting room(2003). The Garden was organized by a grassroots group of citizens in the mid-1970s without benefit of financial bequest nor estate grounds, and is privately funded under the leadership of the Board of Trustees and the Executive Director, Mary Pat Matheson. Responsiveness to the surrounding community has always been its touchstone. In Nov, 2007 the Green Expansion Plan broke ground, to build a LEED-certified Visitor Center with green roof, a green parking facility tucked into a steep hillside, a Canopy Walk soaring 40 feet into the tree canopy, a 95,000 gallon cistern to harvest stormwater runoff including a cascade and edible plant gardens.
Smithgall Woodland Garden is a 185-acre satellite garden 60 miles northeast in Gainesville, Georgia, scheduled to open to the public in 2009.