Foster Lake & The Margaret Tarver Gardens
|
The Wesleyan "back campus" includes approximately eighty contiguous acres of pine and mixed hardwood forest, twenty acres of lightly wooded pasture and open fields, two small streams, and a two-acre lake. This ecologically diverse area provides a habitat for over fifty species of migratory songbirds and waterfowl, deer, racoons, foxes, opossums, and at least seven varieties of frogs. A system of maintained trails provides student access for walking, jogging, cycling, and horseback riding. The area also serves as an ecological preserve and provides field study sites for biology classes and ongoing student/faculty research projects.
In 2004, former Wesleyan Conservatory student Margaret Taylor Tarver made a gift to the College for landscaping and an endowed garden fund at Wesleyan College. The purpose of Mrs. Tarver's gift was two-fold, it allowed for the installation of prominent, stunning gardens across the front of the campus and also beautiful gardens around Foster Lake with walking paths which enhance the natural landscape of the area. The generous gift also created an endowed garden fund to keep The Margaret Tarver Gardens maintained and beautiful in perpetuity.
"Wesleyan is a beautiful campus with beautiful buildings," said Mrs. Tarver, a Macon native and the widow of the former Associated Press Chairman and Atlanta-Journal Constitution publisher Jack Tarver. "I wanted to see them accentuated with gorgeous flowers."
From hollies to azaleas, the front campus has blossomed into breathtaking gardens which greatly enhance the stately entrances to Wesleyan's Georgian-styled grounds. The centerpiece of the new gardens displays a "W" outlined in dwarf hollies at the College's sign between the two main gates on Forsyth Road. Additional gardens have been completed at the gate facing Tucker Road and at the two brick gates fronting Forsyth Road.
|
|
|
|