“Small but Mighty” Garden Achieves Arboretum Status
L to R: Dr. Donna M.E. Ware, Deborah Bussert, Judith Alberts, Alister Perkinson, William Dichtel
Photo courtesy of Elizabeth McCoy
Williamsburg, VA, February 2022 – The Williamsburg Botanical Garden and Freedom Park Arboretum has received Level I accreditation by The ArbNet Arboretum Accreditation Program and The Morton Arboretum for achieving standards of professionalism important for arboreta and botanical gardens around the world. WBG-FPA is now recognized and listed in the Morton Register of Arboreta, a database of the world’s arboreta and gardens dedicated to woody plants.
The Williamsburg Botanical Garden is located within the 600-acre wooded Freedom Park in James City County, Virginia. Over 150 woody species are documented and many are indigenous to James City County. Virginia Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners, Master Naturalists, Tree Stewards, along with Virginia Native Plant Society members and other community volunteers collaborate to maintain the garden and its plantings, including the wooded sections within the Garden’s 2-acre footprint.
The Arboretum includes the Free Black Settlement living history area, adjacent to the WBG, with re-built living quarters on the Hot Water Tract for formerly enslaved people who lived there in the 1870s. More than 30 documented tree species in this area include natives, as well as food-bearing trees that might have been used by 19th century residents.
Efforts to establish an arboretum at Freedom Park began in 2018 as a project of the VCE Tree Stewards to develop the Settlement plantings and continued in 2020 and 2021 as Tree Stewards identified, cataloged, and labeled specimens inside the WBG. Work continues as more plants are added to the Plants Map database with geocoordinates.
The WBG-FPA PlantsMap catalog of trees and woody plants is no longer available, but will replaced sometime in 2025 with an updated link to the PlantSoon database.
WBG Board Chair Judith Alberts explained, “This accreditation acknowledges a level of professionalism even though the Garden is completely maintained by volunteers. We feel that our listing on ArbNet will raise awareness of the role our tiny 2-acre Garden plays to educate both our residents and tourists on the importance of mindful gardening to preserve the planet. The WBG-FPA may be small, but it has over 20 distinct types of garden habitats with a strong focus on using native plants to support pollinators and wildlife. “
The Williamsburg Botanical Garden and Freedom Park Arboretum showcases plants that support pollinators and wildlife; is a resource to educate visitors about environmental conservation including plant biology, the importance of native plants, the prevention and control of invasive species; and demonstrates sustainable gardening practices for a typical garden in the Virginia Peninsula area.