New UNC Charlotte Garden to Showcase Native Flora, Sustainable Practices

A new garden in the works at UNC Charlotte Botanical Gardens will  blend southeastern native flora, sustainable practices, and smart home landscape design in a 1/5-acre showplace that will add to the diversity of these public gardens.

The design for the Mellichamp Native Terrace Garden artfully combines common home landscape features – wooden and stone terraces, low stone walls, gravel paths and a dry/storm water-fed streambed. The garden will showcase a variety of native plants that fill common landscape needs, such as for groundcovers, specimen plants, flower borders, privacy hedges, and foundation plantings.

It also will feature a rain garden, native lawn and lawn substitutes and a mini-meadow planting. The vision for this garden is to inspire and inform visitors about the beauty, horticultural utility, and sustainability of the southeastern flora.

Edward Davis, Landscape Architect is developing the initial concept into a coherent and integrated design. The project is currently under construction and will be substantially complete by the end of 2014 — funding permitting. Funding this far for this project includes grants from the Stanley Smith Horticultural Trust, the North Carolina Native Plant Society, private donors, and the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. The Botanical Gardens seeks additional funds to complete the project.

The Botanical Gardens promote the knowledge and appreciation of plants for educational, environmental, and aesthetic purposes. It offers community classes, opportunities for a relaxing stroll through a beautiful setting, information for people studying plants and those seeking knowledge on the variety of plants the area’s climate can support, plant sales and other resources.

Very few UNC Charlotte faculty members can say they will celebrate their retirement by having an entire garden named after them – but Larry Mellichamp will when he finally goes into the full bloom of retirement at the end of 2014.

Dr. M., as he is affectionately known by many of his former students, colleagues, alumni and community friends, has been director of the UNC Charlotte Botanical Gardens and professor in the Department of Biological Sciences for nearly four decades. His legacy will be honored with the installation of this new garden in his name. Mellichamp has written technical and lay articles on plants and gardening and has co-authored four books, including Native Plants of the Southeast: A Comprehensive Guide to the Best 460 Species for the Garden, and Bizarre Botanicals: Weird and Wonderful Plants You Can Grow (with Paula Gross). The North Carolina Native Plant Society presented him its B.W.Wells award for education efforts.

A fundraising campaign took root in the spring to raise $150,000 by December 2014 to complete the installation of the garden.

“We are all excited about the opportunity that Dr. Mellichamp’s retirement has presented,” said Botanical Gardens’ Advisory Council member and Gardens’ donor Thomas Nunnenkamp. “We have a unique chance to bring focus on the importance and sustainability of native plants in the residential landscape. And, maybe even more important for some of us, the native plant terrace gives us a very special way to recognize a wonderful educator, plantsman and friend.” Nunnenkamp has already made a gift to support the project.

Gifts are still being accepted to support the garden. To learn more about how to make a gift to support the new Mellichamp Native Terrace Garden contact Mai Li Muñoz at mai.li.munoz@uncc.edu or 704-687-0084.