Tree Ring Plaza at Shangri La is the focal point entry to the botanical gardens. Thursday, the two ponds were filled with lotus pads and pink lotus blooms. Colorful plantings formed a semi-circle around the ponds. It looked normal.
But 2020 hasn’t been a normal year for any person, or nature, in Orange. A walk around the gardens shows cleared areas once shaded by trees. A wall of bamboo is bending over a felled bald cypress.
A 10-foot tall root system is perpendicular to the ground. It belongs to an old, native swamp maple tree.
“We can’t move heavy equipment in here, so that is all going to have to be removed by hand,” said Shangri La Director Rick Lewandowski about the maple.
Hurricane Laura brought 90 mph winds whipping through the gardens. Trees and branches fell. Thursday had been four weeks since the storm. The staff and work crews had cleaned up the majority of debris from the garden area.
More trees and down in the nature area of the botanical center. Lewandowski said those will be left for now.
But Laura was not as damaging as Hurricane Rita in 2005. That storm hit as Shangri La was in the planning stages. The Stark Foundation was turning H.J. Lutcher Stark’s private gardens into a nature and education center.
“Generally, we were pretty lucky,” Lewandowski said about Laura.
Shangri La staff had been planning to reopen on September 15, but the hurricane ruined the plans. Now, the gardens are set to welcome the public again in mid-November.
Shangri La and other Stark Foundation Cultural Venues, are dealing with the double disasters in 2020. First, the Covid Pandemic forced the venues to close to visitors in March. Then, Laura came through in August.
The Heronry in Ruby Lake now has a ghost-like look. A scattering of bald cypress trunks of dead trees stand like toothpicks in the water. The great white egrets, blue herons, and ibises are gone for the season.
In the spring when they return, they won’t have limbs on which to build nests to raise families.
Foundation President and CEO Tad McKee told KOGT’s Gary Stelly on The Morning Show, that the salt-water intrusion from storm surge of Hurricane Ike in 2008 killed the bald cypress trees in the fresh water lake. The trees had enough limbs left for nest-building. That has changed.
A covered wooden “bird blind” along Ruby Lake where visitors can watch hundreds of birds with nests and babies is one of the gardens most popular attractions. McKee said manmade nesting areas will be created to assure the birds return.
Lewandowski said the staff will be designing and building poles with platforms to serve as roosts for nesting birds. More bald cypress trees will be planted so the birds will eventually have natural roosts.
The Children’s Garden with play and experiment areas is also popular. The area had little damage.
Shangri La staff took down more than 400 blue glass bottles from the Dancing Bottle Tree sculpture in the Children’s Garden. The sculpture by artist Stephanie Dwyer has six towering metal bottle trees designed with a blue bottle on each branch.
Horticulturist Jennifer Buckner said the three vintage greenhouses had only a couple of pieces of broken glass.
Lewandowski said most of the buildings fared well through the storm. The bayou pontoon boats were in storage because they weren’t being used during the pandemic closing. However, there is some tree damage to the learning center where the boats launch. Also, one of the classrooms in the nature area now needs repairs.
Repairs are not the only construction projects at Shangri La. Before Laura developed into a storm, Shangri La was making improvements.
McKee said the foundation board approved building new sidewalks through the gardens.
Previously, Shangri La had walkways covered in pea gravel. McKee said parents had a difficult time pushing strollers on the gravel. Also, the walkways are being widened to accommodate social distancing during the pandemic.
Lewandowski said the Exhibit Hall and Discovery Theater, which tell the story of Shangri La and its natural beauty, will reopen with new designs and stories.
In the past, museums and information exhibits have encouraged people to touch and interreact with displays. The pandemic and the possibility of spreading Covid 19 changed the goal of displays.
The story of Shangri La in the present will now include more modern history and nature. Lewandowski said visitors will learn about nature’s storms and the effects on Shangri La.
-Margaret Toal, KOGT-
Despite seeing the damage the gardens received on a gloomy day, Shangri La still displays beautiful color that has made it one of the states most popular attractions.
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