Grand Opening of the Ojos y Manos: Eyes & Hands Garden at the Santa Fe Botanical Garden.
A stunning new outdoor space - Ojos y Manos: Eyes & Hands, opened at the Santa Fe Botanical Garden on October 22 with a wonderful celebration. The expanded gardens double as event space and a dramatic ethnobotanical and educational garden where the residents and visitors to Santa Fe can reconnect with their agricultural roots. Mayor Javier Gonzales eloquently dedicated the expansion with an inspiring telling of the lessons he learned from his grandparents in Santa Fe on the healing power of the land and the self-sufficiency it can provide. Following the ribbon-cutting, six curanderos (traditional healers) led the several hundred attendees through a moving series of songs and prayers requesting guidance from the spirits of the six directions (north, south, east, west, sky, and earth). The first performances in the Gathering Place included a young mariachi band, the Pueblo of Pojoaque Youth Hoop Dancers, and Shakespeare in the Garden.
The Santa Fe Botanical Garden on Museum Hill is the first public garden in the high desert region of Northern New Mexico designed to demonstrate environmentally sustainable gardening. The new garden is Phase 2 of a multi-phase master plan and was designed by landscape architect W. Gary Smith with support from Atkin Olshin Schade Architects. Ojos y Manos features experimental agricultural terraces, two outdoor classrooms, and a large canopied amphitheater built of local stone. Our firm designed the center piece of the new garden, a steel and wood trellis that provides shade for the amphitheater.
Our firm also designed a dramatic new visitor center for the gardens that, when completed, will provide permanent space for ticketing, restrooms, gift shop, offices, and a flexible multi-purpose room overlooking the arroyo that runs through the gardens.
