Journey to the Garden

The road to the Oklahoma Centennial
Botanical Garden has been a rewarding one.

Barry Fugatt, Dr. D.C. Coston, Pat Woodrum and Dan Zaloudek decided at their first meeting in 1999 that Tulsa would have a world-class botanical garden.

All brought passion to the table. Fugatt, then director of Tulsa’s Master Gardener program, had visited botanical gardens across the nation, coming home each time disappointed that Tulsa did not have one.

Coston, of Oklahoma State University, had worked with the South Carolina Botanical Garden at Clemson University. He saw a botanical garden in the Tulsa area as an unmatched opportunity for research and education. Woodrum and Zaloudek, both retired, wanted to continue their long-time civic work on a project that would benefit Tulsa and Oklahoma.

The botanical garden would offer entertainment, research and education. Entertainment would be the joy of seeing and discovering plants as well as attending plays, concerts and other community events. The entire Garden would be a living laboratory for botanical, agricultural, medical and academic research. Education would be never-ending for school children, college and graduate school students and home gardeners.

A steering committee visited outstanding botanical gardens in the South for insight on development and operation.

A Board of Directors was formed, 501(c)3 was obtained and the board appointed a 48-member Honorary Advisory Board.

OSU provided $220,000 to hire one of America’s most prestigious botanical garden design firms, Marshall Tyler Rausch, to help with site selection and to draw the Master Plan.

Landscape architects Missy Marshall and Geoffrey Rausch were astounded at one of the final three site choices: more than 200 acres of woodland and plains with incredible views of the Osage Hills and Tulsa skyline.

The land was donated and the Oklahoma Centennial Botanical Garden/Research and Education Center had a home.