Dr. Charles Stallard, president of the Southern Virginia Botanical Gardens and Environmental and Education Center (SVBGEEC), recently spoke to members of the Hyco Road Ruritan Club about the botanical gardens proposed for Edmunds Park. He’s excited about this horticulture project happening right here in our own community, and he’s working hard to generate enthusiasm among county residents.

Over the past year, Stallard has been a part of a group of Virginia Master Gardeners who have diligently been working to bring about the SVBGEEC. 

The president says he just refers to it as the Southern Virginia Botanical Gardens (SVBG). 

Much work has gone into getting this project off the ground like obtaining recognition from both the commonwealth and the federal government.

The organization is now recognized by the Virginia State Corporate Commission, and it is an IRS recognized 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization which, according to the Master Gardener, means the SVBG is qualified to receive tax deductible bequests, devises, transfers or gifts under Section 2055, 2016 or 2522 of the IRS code. 

Furthermore, the organization has been recognized as a public charity, as opposed to a private foundation that will promote its growth and healthy future.

The president said the idea for a botanical garden here got its birth from within the Southside Virginia Master Gardener Association, a group who desired to create demonstration gardens for the region and to educate, not only youth, but all citizens about gardening as a lifestyle. 

The Master Gardeners hope it also will provide an opportunity for our Southern Virginia Higher Education Center to possibly offer a two-year associates degree horticulture program using outdoor laboratory facilities at the garden.

And Stallard, who is passionate about gardening, sees the public garden boosting the county’s economy.

But’s it’s not just about money. It’s as much a quality of life issue as well as an economic development booster for the SVBG founders.

They believe that access to cultural institutions such as museums, art venues, music performances and public gardens all contribute to the quality of life of a region. 

At the same time, they know businesses and industries consider quality of life elements when they consider whether or not to locate in a particular area.  

Stallard, along with other Master Gardeners here, firmly believe the SVBG can help restore some of the economic vitality that was lost with the exportation of textile and furniture manufacturing jobs and the demise of the tobacco industry.

Now garden lovers won’t have to travel over a hundred miles to view botanical wonders in Richmond, Blacksburg and Norfolk. The gardens will be right here in our own community.

Stallard said his group has signed a contract with the county to use a dozen or so acres of land in Edmunds Park, land that is largely open space and gently sloping, ideal for the construction of demonstration gardens.

A tractor-trailer load of plants has been delivered, and now the green thumbs are ready to begin work creating the garden.

And the Town of South Boston also has agreed to work with SVBG to develop a site that is flat and lies in the Dan River flood plain where the former Damask Cotton Mill once stood. Known as Cotton Mill Park, the area is ideal for water gardens, bog gardens and demonstration riparian ecosystems.

With architectural drawing of the botanical gardens in hand, the SVBG chairman is now visiting community clubs and organizations drumming up support and building the group’s membership.

The group very much wants this to be a community and regional project, and their ultimate desire is to leave this region of Virginia with a lasting legacy, and they’re seeking more members who are willing to help.

Stallard’s presentation to the group of Ruritans last week seems to have piqued quite a few interests.

Anyone else interested in becoming a part of this future horticultural success story and economic and tourism drawing card can visit the SVBG website at: www.svbg.org. 

And on a related note…our other Master Gardener friend Bill McCaleb shared the following tips on how to know if you might be a real Southside gardener…
You might be a Southside gardener…

• When you drink your ice tea and more of it runs down your t-shirt than down your mouth.

• You skip lunch or bring it from home to where you can buy your next plant.

• After a hard day at work you sit on your special wood bench in your garden and thank God you live in Southside Virginia instead of up North…

• You have more close encounter snake stories than a herpetologist

• You use industrial size garden tools to wrench new beds from that red clay they call soil.

• You can perfunctorily mix the right concentration of weed-b-gone to any given amount of water.

• You swear your thumb that used to be green has turned black.

• Rocks have to be bought, not just dug up.

• You have to buy dirt to grow much, but it isn’t dirt, its “garden soil.”

• Grass that was a weed up north is your lawn now.

• You’ve become acquainted with various forms of fertilizer, but you’d never used the stuff up north.

•  Someone tells you the name of a place to go for buying garden or water well stuff, but you couldn’t understand much of what they said.  You find the place anyway by some sort of telepathy.