Roanoke Valley Garden Club
The City of Roanoke is beginning a master planning
process to improve Elmwood Park. The City's budget for
the improvements is $5,000,000 and we hope to begin
constructing the improvements in summer 2012.
Elmwood Park is important community green space in our
downtown and hosts more than 100 events each year.
Katherine Knopf attended the first meeting as a RVGC
representative and has provided a history of RVGC's
involvemnet in and around Roanoke city.
What’s New With Gardens in Our City:
The City of Roanoke is currently redesigning Elmwood
Park and we are keeping track of the projected
development and design by attending a series of meetings
that the City of Roanoke is holding this fall.
It might be time for our garden club to consider another
garden project; perhaps one in this beautiful park.
History From Alice Hagan’s 75th Anniversary Talk to RVGC:
Roanoke Valley Garden Club developed their first garden
in 1926 at Elmwood Park. Over the next twenty years, we
planted hundreds of trees and shrubs in the park as well
as eighteen hundred rose bushes. The result of this
project can be seen today in the beautiful trees and the
canopy they create in this downtown oasis. In 1930,
Roanoke Valley planted hundreds of dogwood and other
trees for several miles along Route 11 near Hollins
University. At that time, this was the entrance to our city.
In 1941, we began the restoration of the gardens in the
oldest church in Fincastle, Fincastle Presbyterian Church,
which became a Garden Club of Virginia State Restoration
Project in 1942. In 1955 we planted a garden at the
Roanoke Child Guidance Center and in the 1970’s Roanoke
Valley members planted trees above the Crystal Spring
tennis courts to beautiful those barren banks. When
Cherry Hill became the Roanoke Fine Arts Center, Roanoke
Valley planted 675 boxwoods, 26 Hemlock trees and
periwinkle underneath. When the Fine Arts Center moved
downtown, many of these boxwoods were moved to Fair
Acres and some were moved to Wasena Park, where the
Transportation Museum was then located. This was the
beginning of Roanoke Valley Garden Club’s affiliation with
this organization, which we continue today.
Current Projects:
The Conservation and Horticulture Committees have
joined forces with Roanoke City by adopting and
maintaining designated areas.
The Conservation Committee maintains a space along
Wiley Drive and the Horticulture Committee helps maintain
the entrance way to the new Wasena Park.
Another important fact is that Roanoke Valley Garden
Club became the 16th member of the Garden Club of
Virginia in 1929. It is through the annual Historic Garden
Week Tours, which began at that same time, and the
funds they raise that we are able to do the many State
Restoration projects we undertake and maintain as one of
the 42 clubs of the Garden Club of Virginia.
