OUR SECRET GARDEN

BEYOND TRIMMED HEDGES and formal gardens, bluebonnets pour down a slope toward the lake like spilt tempera paint. Brightly colored swaths of tulips nudge up against a dusty, cactus-covered plain. Several hundred yards away, water lilies are spun by a cascading stream. From the upper deck of a hilltop restaurant, one can spy bikers riding out on the small islands just offshore, pedaling past casual strollers who have come to see the water hyacinths.

Well… not yet. But soon enough. During the next 16 months or so, the newly created Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden will complete the first phase of a 10- to 12-year project that is nothing short of spectacular. On Garland Road, near the Camp house and the DeGolyer Estate, existing gardens are currently being restored and expanded, and they are merely a glimpse of things to come. In the works: an intricate complex of gardens, arbors, fountains, courtyards, walking trails, bike paths, islands, ponds and streams.

The project will also include a research center for botanists and the public alike, complete with greenhouses, laboratories and test garden, a learning center, a library, a restaurant, an amphitheater, and recreations of diverse Texas and Southwestern habitats. Perhaps most dramatic of all, the true aboretum will begin in three to five years with the planting of tens of thousands of trees-pears, redbuds, magnolias, crepe myrtles, to name a few-around the entire lake.

When finished, the Aboretum and Botanical Garden will be a public place for learning and enjoyment that will surely be one of Dallas’ most impressive attractions, drawing perhaps as many as 500,000 visitors each year. And all this on a tract of land most Dallas residents have never seen.

The DeGolyer Estate, the more famous of the two properties and one that’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places, encompasses 44 acres of land fronting the eastern side of White Rock Lake. From the hilltop perch of the low, Spanish-style house, one can see the city’s skyline beyond the dozens of sailboats on the water. A low stone wall defines the small back yard, separating it from the rolling land below. Well-manicured flower beds skirt the house and yard, some under the shade of redbuds and dogwoods. The home was built in 1940 by Everett DeGolyer, the late geophysicist and philanthropist who founded the DeGolyer-McNaughton geophysical consultant company. In 1972, the estate was given to Southern Methodist University by the DeGolyer Foundation. Following a civic improvement referendum in 1975, the city bought the property, which is now run through the City Arts Program as a cultural facility. It’s open to the public, and on sunny afternoons-particularly Sundays-DeGolyer attracts a light but steady flow of guests who come to tour, stroll and someimes just stretch. Next to the property sits the Camp house, a simple, two-story brick structure built in 1938 on 22 acres of mostly wild land.

The new arboretum is the project of the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Society, a private, non-profit organization that owns the Camp estate, which it will give to the city when the Camp and DeGolyer properties have completely merged into what the society is calling “a living museum of international sun and water gardens.” It is a $54 million undertaking, and its fruition will be slow, but even now the transformation can be seen in flower beds, in garden paths and in the detailed model that sits inside the Camp house-a topographical rendering of a dream.

This dream has its roots in a small meeting in 1970 between representatives of the Dallas North Garden Forum and the North Dallas Chamber of Commerce. They formed the North Dallas Beautification Committee, the forerunner of the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Society (DABS). Forum member Nell Denman (who is credited with the idea of a public garden) and the committee spent the next two years meeting with the city’s park officials in hopes of locating a site. In 1973, the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Society was formed, and it was officially incorporated the following year. After the DeGolyer property was bought by the city in 1975, DABS began quiet but intense fund raising. When in 1979 the Camp house and land were going to be sold to private developers, DABS decided to try to buy the property. Because they needed more time to raise the money, DABS member Ralph Rogers, founder and chairman of Texas Industries, bought the property for $600,000; he then sold it to DABS six months later at the same price, after having given them a significant contribution toward it. Next, DABS hired Dr. Shannon Smith, a horticulturalist from the University of Florida, to organize and direct the project. Soon thereafter, a search for a landscape design firm began. The firm finally chosen was the highly respected Seattle architecture and landscaping group of Jones and Jones, which designed most of that city’s major historic site renovations, as well as others around the country. Working closely with Smith and members of the society’s board, Jones and Jones came up with a plan that would utilize both pieces of property, both homes and much of the existing gardens while becoming something much grander in its own right.

For the time being, the project will look humble. But in the multicolored tulip patches and the seedling beds outside the Camp house, where DABS is headquartered, there is clear evidence of the arboretum’s commitment not only to beauty, but to science and learning as well. This spring, 112 varieties of tulips bloomed under the careful scrutiny of the arboretum staff and dozens of college interns who work on the property to study the plants and flowers. Findings on adaptability and ideal growing conditions are made available both to the scientific community and to anyone who is interested. The arboretum’s master plan has smoothly integrated both aesthetic goals and educational goals, and the society intends for the arboretum to become a place where academic and professional botanists can work and visit. The group also plans for the arboretum to publish articles for the scientific community. “Most people picture a botanical garden as something bright and pretty and not much else,” says Smith. “Actually, a good one should have five aims: beauty, education and information, applied and basic research, conservation and the ability to function as a public facility.”

At present, the DeGolyer grounds are open free of charge to visitors Tuesday through Sunday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and the house is open for scheduled tours starting at 1 p.m. The society offers tours of the Camp property by special arrangement, but anyone is invited to drive in and look for themselves or to walk over from the DeGol-yer Estate at 8525 Garland Rd. It’s worth stopping in the Camp house to see the model-and to imagine. “There aren’t any major botanical facilities in Texas,” says Smith. “This is going to be one.”