Memories of Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden

They come for more than just the plants.

Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden is one of Richmond's most popular wedding sites. Some visitors find its romantic nooks to be a perfect proposal spot. New moms connect there for a little exercise and a picnic lunch with children in strollers.

Some go to the garden for a respite from high-stress, high-tech jobs. One Ginter member who had been through cancer surgery came to the garden with his wife to spiritually heal and reconnect with nature.

Sarah Braun and her then-husband-to-be, Kevin, were taking pictures in the garden before their wedding. "We were trying to get as many shots as we could, in as many different locations.

"We stood on a bridge underneath giant crape myrtle trees, then went around the side of the bridge to get a few shots next to the stream. We squatted down, and my fiancé almost fell in the water with his arms wrapped around my waist. One of the best pictures is of us laughing hysterically, almost having fallen in."

Almost every weekday for seven years, Alesa Hemenway, a contract administrator with Loughridge & Co. construction firm, has made the seven-minute drive from her office to Lewis Ginter.

With a book in her brown-leather backpack, she grabs lunch in Ginter's café and hikes briskly through the gardens, usually ending up at the Woodland Resting Place's Lace House gazebo on the outskirts of the property.

"I was looking for a safe place to walk," said Hemenway, popping open a small salad container. "I wanted a place where I could just park, walk for an hour and go back to work. I read my book, eat lunch and just decompress."

John Larrimore, local violin maker and bonsai grower, has been a Ginter member for 15 years. He began volunteering in March "to give something back to a place that has given so much to me."

On a recent humid summer afternoon, Larrimore, who has a violin shop in Richmond's Manchester area, was pruning the Asian Valley landscape.

"The idea," he said, pointing to a row of bushes, "is to create a cloudlike shape so it's not so formal. But with the spirea," he continued, pointing to the colorful flowering shrub, "you don't want it quite so closely cropped. You want it to have a little bit of a wild look."

Shirley and Charles Cheek decided to preserve memories of Ginter visits with their three young grandsons through the garden's engraved brick or stone program. The couple decided to give each child a blue-stone paver engraved with his name, date and the phrase, "Mumsey and Me on my first birthday."

Contact Julie Young at (804) 649-6732 or .