This writer arrived on Anegada in September 1993. She was returning to the home of her grandparents, to a land she knew and loved and a people who read the night skies to establish the hour the tide changed and then set sail without a compass, arriving at the next port at the time calculated.
Strangers were arriving daily, and the island was no longer her Shangri-La. They had invaded the privacy of the Forgotten Island to the north, where a people had survived the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”
What could she do to enhance the island of sparse rainfall, whose vegetation awakened only when the showers came?
A botanical garden? The audacity! And why not?
She brought the concept to the attention of the chief minister, Ralph O’Neal, who applauded the idea and donated $15,362 to the project. Designing the garden was not an easy task: Many variables surfaced, including lack of topsoil and water. After much discussion with Jim and Roger White, it was decided to build rock beds in various geometrical shapes. Jim and Roger set to the task of collecting medium-sized rocks, creating the beds, and filling them with the sparse existing soil and pro-mix purchased from the Fort Garden Centre. Months later, Mr. O’Neal dispatched a barge of soil, providing a healthier environment.
Bougainvillea glabra in a riot of colour, in competition with the yellow allamanda cathartica, created “a thing of beauty, a joy forever.”
Water, the most important commodity, had to be trucked from the Fountain Well on the eastern end of the island, and it appeared to evaporate instantly under the island’s extremely hot environment.
The land for the project was donated by Wilfred Creque and Kenneth Faulkner. It was placed under the National Parks Trust, but due to a lack of funding they were unable to assume full responsibility.
Nevertheless, the NPT instructed the BVI Electricity Corporation to install a meter providing current for the Christmas tree lights in 2001 and set up a pump providing water for the irrigation system designed at the gardens with the assistance of Sylvia Faulkner, an agricultural officer. This was short-lived due to the destruction of the system by those who cut the grass.
Lawrence Wheatley, proprietor of the Anegada Reef Hotel, gave this writer access to water free of charge in memory of the late Lowell Wheatley, who had also supported the gardens. Magnum Walker, a visitor to Anegada at that time, donated a lawnmower to the project and spent hours weeding. He and his charming wife are part of the Anegada family at Cow Wreck.
The garden was to have received benches donated by families in memory of their ancestors. The following committee members lent their valuable time to the project: Cheryl Vanterpool Varlack; Everad Faulkner; Alston Caines, a teacher at the Anegada School; Master Kerrel Creque; and Keith Smith.
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