Horticulture at the Virginia Zoo in Norfolk

This originally appeared on the Fort Bend County Master Gardener Blog on 6 November 2009.

A few months ago, my wife and I visited the Tidewater area to attend a retirement ceremony. We had planned to have a few days to re-explore the area and treat ourselves to some time at the Zoo. But we weren’t expecting the Horticulture Gardens to be the highlight!

The Virginia Zoo in Norfolk has developed ten different themed gardens throughout the park that complement the animals in residence. They have a Butterfly Garden, Color Gardens, an Organic Rose Garden, an Ornamental Grass Garden, a Rain Garden, a Shade Garden, and a Tropical Garden. However, my wife and I were overwhelmed by three of them – the Herb Garden, the Virginia Barnyard Garden, and the African Village Garden.

At first, we didn’t realize that the Gardens were there. We were walking over to the African Savanna exhibit when we stumbled across their Herb Garden. A wonderfully refreshing smell of herbs was noticeable from 15 feet away. Each section was marked as to the use of the herbs (such as medicinal or culinary) and the herbs were identified by common and scientific names.

We then starting looking for more gardens to visit (alas, we soon forgot about the animals) and found several more. Eventually, we found the Virginia Barnyard Garden where we spoke with a zoo employee about it. She mentioned that the gardens were used to educate the public and to provide fresh provender for the animals. The garden changes frequently as the seasons change and fresh plantings are continuous.

The third garden that made an impression on us was the African Village Garden. All of the plantings here are familiar to all of us but have in common being originally from Africa.

We learned a lot visiting the Gardens in this zoo and since most of us have interest in this subject, I highly recommend a visit to the Virginia Zoo in Norfolk – but you don’t even have to look at the animals!

To view more about these Gardens, visit http://www.virginiazoo.org/about-the-zoo/our-gardens.asp and see what they have done to improve their zoo!