EAST GLACIER — After years of hard work, 1,800 new plants and a variety of 85 plant species are back on full display at the gardens of Glacier Park Lodge.
“It’s about 660 feet long total between the T-Gardens that are up at the top by the lodge and then goes all the way down to the depot,” said Pursuit and Glacier Park Lodge Special Projects Manager Cody Kirkland.
Since opening in 1913, the historic Glacier Park Lodge in East Glacier has welcomed visitors from around the world.
Majestic gardens sit at the lodge's entrance.
“So, we planted certain things throughout the gardens, so blooms happen from the time the snow stops in May until the snow starts in October, so there’s blooms throughout the whole summer,” said Kirkland.
During the COVID-19 shutdown in 2020, workers were not allowed on-site to take care of the gardens, as invasive plant species and rapid overgrowth took ruin.
Kirkland and his team of gardener’s came up with a master plan to restore the gardens.
“Plants kind of exploded and choked out some of the other stuff so we had to pretty much not start fresh, we tried to keep as many of the plants that were historical in the garden as we could, but we took out all the grass, rototilled everything, put the irrigation system in, we put fertilizer in to raise up the soil quality,” Kirkland told MTN.
During the winter months, Kirkland nurtured plants in the lodge’s greenhouse as they prepared to plant come spring.
“Started stuff early as well because some of it you have to start in order to plant right in the spring so I started some of the plants in December, got seedlings and started trying to plant stuff as soon as we could, as soon as the frost stopped hitting.”
Kirkland studied old photographs of the garden from decades back to help formulate his plan for the new garden. A priority was to make sure the garden remained accessible to all visitors.
“All the beautiful plants, the people like to come walk through it and we have a lot of elderly people that come that can’t do all the hikes and stuff, so to bring some of the beauty and stuff into the front lawn and allow access to that is important,” said Kirkland.
Master Gardner Ann Amme said it’s a labor of love to bring these gardens back to life.
“Some of the plants we just keep deadheading them and they put blooms back you know within a week, now that we’ve finally had some rain it will really help them to bloom,” said Amme.
Kirkland’s excited to see the gardens blossom for years to come.
“It’s going to take a few years for it to fill out and the plants will grow and get bigger and expand but you know I’m really proud of the team, they did a great job getting it to the point that it’s at.”
