The Sarah P. Duke Gardens consist of approximately of landscaped and wooded areas at
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
located in
Durham, North Carolina
Durham ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the county seat of Durham County, North Carolina, Durham County. Small portions of the city limits extend into Orange County, North Carolina, Orange County and Wake County, North Carol ...
. There are of allées, walks, and pathways throughout the gardens. The gardens are divided into four areas, the Historic Core and Terraces, the
H.L Blomquist Garden of Native Plants, the
William Louis Culberson Asiatic Arboretum and the Doris Duke Center Gardens (including the Page-Rollins White Garden). The gardens are a memorial to Sarah Pearson Angier Duke, mother of
Mary Duke Biddle
Mary Lillian Duke Biddle (November 16, 1887 – June 14, 1960) was an American philanthropist.
Early life
She was born as Mary Lillian Duke on November 16, 1887, to Benjamin Newton Duke in Durham, North Carolina. She attended Durham's Trinit ...
and wife of
Benjamin N. Duke, one of Duke University's benefactors.
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 1934, when Dr. Frederic Moir 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
iris
Iris most often refers to:
*Iris (anatomy), part of the eye
*Iris (mythology), a Greek goddess
* ''Iris'' (plant), a genus of flowering plants
* Iris (color), an ambiguous color term
Iris or IRIS may also refer to:
Arts and media
Fictional ent ...
es, 25,000
daffodil
''Narcissus'' is a genus of predominantly spring flowering perennial plants of the amaryllis family, Amaryllidaceae. Various common names including daffodil,The word "daffodil" is also applied to related genera such as '' Sternbergia'', ''Is ...
s, 10,000 small
bulb
In botany, a bulb is structurally a short stem with fleshy leaves or leaf basesBell, A.D. 1997. ''Plant form: an illustrated guide to flowering plant morphology''. Oxford University Press, Oxford, U.K. that function as food storage organs duri ...
s and assorted
annuals graced the lawns. Unfortunately, the heavy rains of that summer and the flooding stream completely 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 P.Duke's daughter,
Mary Duke Biddle
Mary Lillian Duke Biddle (November 16, 1887 – June 14, 1960) was an American philanthropist.
Early life
She was born as Mary Lillian Duke on November 16, 1887, to Benjamin Newton Duke in Durham, North Carolina. She attended Durham's Trinit ...
, to finance a new garden on higher ground as a memorial to her mother.
Ellen Biddle Shipman
Ellen Biddle Shipman (November 5, 1869 – March 27, 1950) was an American landscape architect known for her formal gardens and lush planting style. Along with Beatrix Farrand and Marian Cruger Coffin, she dictated the style of the time and stro ...
, a pioneer in American landscape design, was chosen to create the new garden, known as the Terraces, in the Italianate style. They are considered by many to be her greatest work.
Trivia
The 36th line of
latitude
In geography, latitude is a coordinate that specifies the north– south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from –90° at the south pole to 90° at the north pol ...
goes directly through the Duke Gardens; there is a plaque designating a spot through which the
parallel
Parallel is a geometric term of location which may refer to:
Computing
* Parallel algorithm
* Parallel computing
* Parallel metaheuristic
* Parallel (software), a UNIX utility for running programs in parallel
* Parallel Sysplex, a cluster of IBM ...
runs.
Gallery
See also
*
External links
Sarah P. Duke GardensDuke University
{{Authority control
Duke University campus
Botanical gardens in North Carolina
Duke family
Protected areas of Durham County, North Carolina