The Sarah P. Duke Gardens consist of approximately 55 acres of landscaped and wooded areas at Duke University. There are five miles of allées, walks, and pathways throughout the gardens. The gardens are divided into three parts, the Terraces, the H.L Blomquist Garden of Native Plants, the Culberson Asiatic Arboretum. The gardens are a memorial to Sarah P. Duke, wife of Benjamin N. Duke, one Duke University's founders. Duke Chapel Duke University is a private, coeducational university in Durham, North Carolina in the United States. ... Benjamin N. Duke Benjamin Newton Duke (April 25, 1855 - 1929) was a U.S. tobacco, textile, energy industrialist and philanthropist. ...

History

In the early 1920s, Duke University's planners intended to turn the area where the Sarah P. Duke Gardens are currently located into a lake. Funds for this project ran short and the idea was subsequently abandoned. The gardens then officially began in the 1930s, when Dr. Frederick M. Hanes, a faculty member at the Duke Medical School, persuaded Sarah P. Duke to give $20,000 to finance the planting of flowers in the debris-filled ravine. By 1935, over 100 flower beds consisting of 40,000 irises, 25,000 daffodils, 10,000 small bulbs and asorted annuals graced the lawns. Unfortunately, the heavy rains of that summer and the flooding stream completly washed away the original gardens. By the time Sarah. P. Duke died in 1936, the gardens were completely destroyed. Dr. Hanes was able to convince Sarah Duke's daughter, Mary Duke Biddle, to finance a new garden on higher ground as a memorial to her mother. Ellen Shipman, a pioneer in American landscape design, was chosen to create the new gardens. They are considered by many to be her greatest work. Duke University School of Medicine The Medical School of Duke University. ...

External Links

Sarah P. Duke Gardens