While visiting the University of Virginia’s Blandy Experimental Farm is by far the best way to enjoy its collection of native plants, the next best way is by joining Blandy’s online Nature Nurtures event, Saturday, Oct. 24, 2020.

The event includes a virtual tour with a discussion of native plants featuring internationally known gardener, author, and native plant advocate Colston Burrell. Nature Nurtures also features a demonstration of regional, farm-to-table cuisine with Neal Wavra, owner and chef at Field and Main Restaurant in Marshall, Virginia, and practical lessons on growing and using plants for personal health and joy with Corey McDonald of the Shenandoah Valley-based Red Root & Co.

Susan G. Harris hasn’t been to Blandy since last fall, due to the pandemic, so she’s looking forward to a virtual visit through the Nature Nurtures program. Harris serves as the UVA Board of Visitors representative to the Foundation for the State Arboretum board and is a loyal supporter of what she considers a “hidden gem” of the northwest Virginia countryside.

“My favorite walk is through the 300-tree ginkgo grove in mid-October when the trees are in full yellow display,” she said. “In addition to K-12 educational programming, there are programs and workshops for all ages on birds, bees, local insects, native plants, and horticulture, including the largest collection of boxwood varieties in North America.”

The State Arboretum of Virginia—also known as the Orland E. White Arboretum—occupies 172 acres in the center of UVA’s Blandy Experimental Farm. The entire property was acquired by UVA through a bequest from the estate of Graham F. Blandy, a New York City stockbroker and railroad magnate who had purchased a 900-acre working farm, The Tuleyries, as a summer home. Upon his death in 1926, he left 700 acres of the property to UVA, and upon his wife’s death, in 1939, the University received a $670,000 endowment that continues to support basic operations. 

Blandy’s bequest language read, in part, that the farm’s purpose was “to educate boys farming in the various branches.”

David Carr, director
Blandy Experimental Farm

That initial gift has grown into a $29 million endowment that provides $1.3 million in annual income. Today, in addition to its year-round public programs, Blandy serves as a field station for UVA’s Department of Environmental Sciences. The department conducts a variety of undergraduate- and graduate-level ecological research, most recently in areas such as plant pollination, plant-animal interactions, the effects of light pollution on plant growth, and the effects of inbreeding on plants.

David Carr, director and research professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences, said that field-based research, combined with public outreach, is still the heart of the Blandy mission. “At Blandy, our aim is to increase understanding of the natural environment through research and education,” he said. “We’ll continue to grow and develop our outreach programs around environmental themes, using our academic programs and the arboretum collections to produce rich learning opportunities for our diverse audiences.”

Harris noted that, while Blandy is operated by UVA as a University affiliated organization, the state funding it receives is not sufficient to cover the costs of programming. Moreover, state support was reduced by 15% this year. “In addition to the endowment and state and University funding, Blandy relies heavily on donations from visitors and friends to operate,” she said.

Orland E. White became Blandy’s first director, from 1927 to 1955. Formerly a plant geneticist at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, he brought the first UVA graduate students to Blandy, where they created the arboretum to collect and study the genetic diversity of the woody plants of the world. The resulting collection was named in his honor, and well over half of the original arboretum planted by White still remains.

White’s arboretum was conceived and laid out in a thoughtful response to the arboretum’s valley terrain and ephemeral ponds and waterways. “The resulting landscape is a notable cultural landscape of plant collections and gardens, vistas, stone-lined roads, and a distinctive architecture.” said Nancy Takahashi, landscape architect and associate professor emeritus in the UVA Department of Landscape Architecture.

In the 1940s, there were several female graduate students at Blandy, well before women were admitted as undergraduates at the University. Margaret Menzel (seated, below right) earned her Ph.D. under Dr. White and went on to a distinguished career at Florida State University. The Botanical Society of America named an award after her for the best graduate student presentation in genetics.

With a 300-tree grove, Blandy claims the largest planting of ginkgoes used for research in the U.S. Each year, from late October to early November, the unique trees offer a brief but gloriously golden spectacle for foliage followers.

Blandy’s dawn redwoods are grown from the original seeds collected in the 1940s when this living fossil was rediscovered in China.

Retired physicist Thomas Flory (Col ’71) created the Walter S. Flory Jr. Endowment for Blandy in 2016 to honor his father and further research at Blandy. This $2 million blended gift and bequest is the second largest gift to the farm since Graham Blandy’s visionary bequest in 1926.