This Storybook Garden at Cleveland Botanical Garden should be no secret...

Tall walls and hedges often provide the perfect setting for secret, healing gardens, places to calm the mind, heal the heart and strengthen the body. Offering rehabilitation for the ill and general well-being for all people, these quiet, leafy oases are designed and planted to engage all the senses. Cleveland Botanical Garden's healing garden is based on Francis Hodgson Burnett's classic children's story, The Secret Garden, in which a walled garden, neglected for decades, is discovered by a child, Mary, who has been equally neglected and traumatized. In her quest to restore the garden, Mary begins to lose her sadness, frailty and selfishness, involving her invalid cousin Colin in the process. As Mary and Colin see how their labor-- clearing, pruning, planting-- brings beauty and order to their secret place, they learn a lifelong lesson in nurturing themselves and others. As their newly discovered confidence transcends their emotional upsets and physical ailments, the Secret Garden frees them from their prison of selfishness and neurosis.

Landscape designer Judy Batdorff's healing garden features a flowering cherry tree, rhododendrons, roses, clematis, poppies, iris, primulas and chamomile. Elements from The Secret Garden-- old stone walls, Colin's wheelchair, and Mary's jump rope-- leave the artistic impression that the children have just left the garden, and will soon return after a run on the moors. And, under the direction of Maureen Heffernan and staff gardener Larry Giblock, the garden design also includes wheelchair-accessible paths, raised beds, and plants with fragrance and textural interest for the visually impaired, resulting in a healing oasis that is accessible to all.

Photo by Stephen Crompton, provided courtesy of Cleveland Botanical Garden.

Nor is this whimsical garden at Callaway Gardens just for children.

As the summer of 1996 represents an international celebration of the world coming to Atlanta for the Centennial Olympic Games, "A World of Children's Stories" depicts a horticultural interpretation of authentic folk tales from each of the six major continents. Callaway Gardens' Director of Gardens Bill Barrick has brought words, vision and masterful horticulture together to create a storybook journey between ten-foot tall, wooden children's books, each one open to brightly-painted pictures of horticulturally significant species or hybrids of plants. The scene in each book is displayed in vivid color and detail using topiary animals, to portray: Wilbur the Pig made of Earth Star Bromeliad, Charlotte's Web, North America; Iwariwa the Cayman made of Carpet Bugle and Cliff Brake Fern and Kanaporiwa the Bird made of Plumosa Fern, Earth Star, Golddust Dracaena, Bromeliad and Tillandisa, How the Iwariwa the Cayman Learned to Share, South America; Peter Rabbit made of Misty English Ivy, Peter Rabbit, Europe; five-foot elephant made of Ingrid English Ivy with a vibrant riding blanket made of kiebessy, tico Orange and Gold Strike Kalanchoe, Mondo Grass and Fireball Bromeliad, The Blind Men and the Elephant, Asia; Koala bears made of Bettina English Ivy, Koala Lou, Australia; and Zoma made of Nana and Gyoku-ryu Dwarf Mondo Grass and Silver Mist and Ebony Night Mondo Grass, Zomo the Rabbit, Africa.

Modestly describing himself as "just part of the team," Callaway Gardens Greenhouse Production Manager, Bobby McCain, coordinated and designed the topiary to "add to the charm of these stories," to create a storybook garden that will excite children and impress horticulturalists of all ages; the successful design earned the garden the Governor's Trophy, the Chicago Horticultural Society Medal and the Bulkley Medal at the Southeastern Flower Show.

Photos provided courtesy of The Southeastern Flower Show.