Green Horizon Land Trust announced that it has completed its land acquisitions within the viewshed of Bok Tower Gardens. An additional 40 acres in the southern viewshed of Bok Tower Gardens have been acquired to protect and preserve the Olmsted design landscape. This will bring the total lands acquired in ownership and conservation easements to 260 acres.
140 acres will be restored to longleaf pine habitat over the next several years as donations and grants are received. An additional 120 acres of citrus groves acquired under conservation easements will continue to be managed as groves. Profits from the sale of the fruit will be used to offset the cost of restoration of other acquired lands within the project.
Restoration and improvements will include a small park behind Lake Wales High School as well as hiking trails with interpretive signs within the project. These trails will connect to existing trails at Bok Tower Gardens. The work will continue over several years. In partnership with Green Horizon, Bok Tower Gardens will restore and manage this land.
David Price, President of Bok Tower Gardens Foundation said, “The partnership with Green Horizon Land Trust has protected for future generations, the beauty of a cultural landscape that is so important to the historic design of the Gardens. The Trust has done so much for the community and the State toward preservation of our cultural heritage.”
Funding for this project was provided by a grant from the Florida Communities Trust, Green Horizon and Bok Tower Gardens also partnered on a grant from the Elizabeth Ordway Dunn Foundation to receive a $25,000. grant to work toward a restoration plan for this project.
Green Horizon’s quest for a Florida Communities Trust grant to protect lands surrounding Bok Tower Gardens from future development began in 2005. “It is exciting that the first phase of the project has now been completed,” said Lou Parrott, Executive Director.
