Funding for Fabiano Botanical Gardens moving forward

• Tweet
• 

The Fabiano Botanical Gardens were unveiled for the first time Wednesday to several community and Central Michigan University officials since their groundbreaking in September 2008.

University President George Ross spoke to about 100 people at the start of ceremonies, expressing his excitement about what the gardens could provide for the university.

“I can only imagine the hundreds and thousands of students who will benefit from this,” he said.

The six-phase process is currently estimated to cost $807,529, although a few components of the project have yet to be estimated.

Claudia Douglass, interim vice provost of academic affairs, said the gardens are completely privately-funded.

“It doesn’t, in these times, pull money from other programs,” Douglass said.

They have received enough money to fund the gardens through the fourth stage, which will put a pavilion to the north of the pond. Douglass said she hopes the pavilion will be used for studying, graduation pictures and even weddings.

Slightly less than half of the money is going into an endowment fund, which will earn interest and fund the maintenance of the gardens.

Both Ross and Douglass stressed the importance of the gardens as a teaching tool for the biology and geology programs.

“We all wanted the gardens to be an outdoor laboratory,” Douglass said. “Something we could use for teaching and research.”

Jim Fabiano, owner of the Bay City-based Fabiano Brothers beer and wine distributor, and a sponsor of the gardens, said the project is coming along just as he imagined.

“I can see our plans and dreams coming to fruition,” Fabiano said. “I can see the whole CMU community coming to enjoy it, and that’s what it’s for.”

The gardens are almost through their second phase of construction, which has added shrubs to the woodland edge and changed the shape and perimeter of the pond. The remaining four stages will continue until 2013.

Future stages will add improved irrigation systems, plants that highlight Michigan’s ecosystems, a children’s garden and a number of new streams and pathways.