Hahn Horticulture Garden facts for kids
The Peggy Lee Hahn Horticulture Garden is a beautiful 7-acre garden. It's located on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Virginia. This garden is the biggest public garden in western Virginia. You can visit it every day for free!
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A Garden's Story
This special garden started in 1984. Three people helped create it: Dr. Robert Lyons, Dr. Richard Johnson, and Robert McDuffie. In 2004, the garden got a new name. It was named after Mrs. Peggy Lee Hahn and her husband, T. Marshall Hahn. He used to be the president of Virginia Tech. Students, staff, teachers, and volunteers built and planted everything you see in the garden.
Learning and Helping in the Garden
The garden is a living classroom for students. They study subjects like horticulture (growing plants) and landscape architecture (designing outdoor spaces). Students also learn about urban forestry (city trees) and entomology (insects).
More than 50 volunteer gardeners help out all year. These volunteers are from Blacksburg and nearby areas. Many of them are part of the Virginia Cooperative Extension Master Gardener program. They use their skills to keep the garden looking great.
What You Can See in the Garden
The Peggy Lee Hahn Horticulture Garden has many different areas to explore. Each part shows off unique plants and designs.
- Dwarf Conifer Display: See many kinds of small evergreen trees here.
- Perennial Border: This area has over 90 different types of perennial plants. Perennials are plants that grow back every year.
- Pond: Enjoy the calm pond with beautiful Japanese maple trees. You'll also see beds of colorful annual flowers. Annuals are plants that live for one growing season.
- Shade Beds: Discover plants that love the shade here. This section includes native plants and unusual woody plants from Asia and Europe.
- Stream Garden: This area features over 20 types of bog and aquatic plants. These plants thrive in wet, watery places.
- Trident Maple Allee: Walk along a path lined with Maple trees. Underneath the trees, you'll find lovely perennial and annual flowers.
- Wisteria Arbor: This is a covered walkway with beautiful wisteria vines. You can also see climbing hydrangea plants here.
- Xeriscape Area: Learn about xeriscaping in this section. It's a way of gardening that uses plants needing very little water.