Mead Botanical Garden plans clean-up effort after Irma

Mead Botanical Garden saw its share of damage from Hurricane Irma — but the community may soon come together to bring Winter Park’s beloved botanical garden back to normal.

A clean-up day is expected to occur sometime in the coming weeks and months, Mead Botanical Garden Executive Director Cynthia Hasenau said.

It would be an effort to restore the 47-acre garden that has been closed to the public because of unstable limbs hanging from trees after Irma.

A potential clean-up effort would focus on cleaning up the north side of the main roadway, including the legacy garden area, the trailhead, the restrooms, the historic smaller amphitheater and the Mead Botanical Garden offices. However, it all is under the condition that the city is able to remove all the dangerous hanging tree limbs first.

A clean-up day set for Saturday, Sept. 30 was canceled because of the hanging debris.

“That is what has made the garden unsafe for visitors,” Hasenau said. “The decision has been made to address a portion of the garden first, to get a portion of the garden safe.”

Hasenau said Mead Garden officials hope to return the garden to a sense of normalcy as soon as they can.

“The garden holds a lot of meaning to so many people,” Hasenau said. “There are large numbers of people where the garden is part of their regular routine. They visit the garden on a daily basis — if not multiple times a week.”

Some aspects of the botanical garden are still on hold, including the on-site offices. The branches and the continued lack of power has forced the team to work elsewhere. The damage has forced weddings to relocate as well, and it may even hinder a longstanding tradition — the fall migratory bird watch walks.

“Those happen every Saturday morning in the month of October,” Hasenau said. “With the devastation, it’s going to seriously impact those bird walks, because not all the parts of the garden are going to be open. It won’t be the entire 47 acres.”
It’s been a difficult period of transition, Hasenau said, but the community has rallied around the garden. She said the support has been wonderful.

“We’ve already gotten a number of calls from people offering to volunteer,” she said. “We will be taking them up on it.”
The portion of Mead Garden that receives the clean-up effort will be reassessed afterward to make sure it is safe and ready to be reopened to the public.

Events such as the Woodstock Winter Park annual fundraiser event Saturday, Oct. 7, still are scheduled for the coming weeks, Hasenau said.
Residents are encouraged to follow Mead Botanical Garden on Facebook and visit meadgarden.org for clean-up effort updates.