WGI collaborated with Harries Heder Collaborative for Palm Beach County Art in Public Places to develop a tropical wetland garden that fulfilled a portion of Mounts’ Master Plan. The work included incorporating the artist’s interactive installation pieces into an intimate garden setting to provide educational messages that support Mounts’ mission statement of encouraging the art, science, and joy of gardening to foster respect and understanding of South Florida’s subtropical environment.

This tropical wetland garden encourages visitors to interact with their environment through exploration and discovery by blurring the lines between art and landscape. The main attraction invites people to walk on a unique geometric walkway that appears to float on the water’s surface, giving the feeling of walking on water. The structure creates display windows that showcase aquatic plants that the garden utilizes in its educational outreach program, Ambassadors of the Wetlands. The design team aimed to educate and inspire visitors by applying sustainable Florida-friendly principles, complementing the garden’s existing conditions, demonstrating proper plant selection, and encouraging water conservation to promote environmental stewardship.

Sustainable design principles applied to this project included the use of pervious concrete pathways to allow water to pass through the surface to help recharge groundwater and minimize runoff, in addition to reusing the existing cap rock excavated from the site to build the waterfall. Locally sourced cap rock was used for stacked-stone retention walls, strategically placed to preserve existing trees and create pathways for the five-foot descent to the water’s surface. By respecting and complementing the garden’s existing conditions, six months after the project’s completion, the tropical wetland garden looked like it was always there.

Highlights:

• Incorporated permanent installation art pieces into the garden
• Educational display garden to showcase seasonal changes that occur in natural wetland ecosystems
• Sustainable material selections and reuse of existing materials
• Demonstrates Right Plant, Right Place