Bob Bledsoe, executive director of Garvan Woodland Gardens, will retire in January 2024. Under his leadership, he's seen the woodland garden in Hot Springs through 22 years — or 88 seasons — of flower displays, weddings, holiday lights and visits from local schoolchildren and tourists from around the world.

Today, Garvan Gardens, an outreach center of the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, enjoys the fruits of Bledsoe's leadership, in recent new growth and expansions and by providing a greater value to the school, U of A and the state through educational programming.

"For over 20 years, Bob Bledsoe has steadfastly led Garvan Woodland Gardens, building resources, staff, managed forests and plantings, special events and community relationships, to the greater good and realization of Verna Garvan's originating vision," said Peter MacKeith, dean of the Fay Jones School. "The gardens have benefited enormously from his care, devotion and commitment. On behalf of the Fay Jones School, and on behalf of all those who have visited and will visit the gardens, I salute Bob, thank him and celebrate his accomplishments."

Bledsoe's retirement was announced in September to the staff and significant donors of Garvan Gardens. Becca Ohman will serve as interim director while Dean MacKeith works with the garden's constituencies to determine the best next steps in leadership. A retirement recognition event is being planned for late January in Hot Springs.

In late 2001, Bledsoe answered a job posting in the local newspaper. The then-new Garvan Woodland Gardens was looking for a development director. The qualifications fell in line with his skill set. Bledsoe, who received his Doctor of Ministry and master's degree in divinity, had most recently worked as a licensed real estate broker in Hot Springs. In ministry work, he had raised money for capital campaigns, made strides to enlarge the membership base and coordinated volunteers.

Bledsoe started work on Jan. 1, 2002, in a very "primitive" environment — with no desk, no phone, no computer. His goal the first year was to raise at least enough money to cover his salary and justify his position.

Garvan Woodland Gardens officially opened to the public with a dedication ceremony on April 7, 2002. It had been years in the making since Verna Cook Garvan donated the 210-acre property in 1985 to the then-School of Architecture at the U of A. The land had been part of her father's lumber business.

The U of A had never had a botanical garden before, but the Fayetteville campus provided human resources and information technology support. This included creating specialized position descriptions for the staff of skilled professionals they would need to develop and maintain this 210-acre garden.

This administrative support from the U of A allowed the staff on the ground at the garden to focus on selecting and maintaining plantings, design and development, building a membership and supporter base, and inviting the public to this new tourist attraction.

"We were making the airplane in the air," Bledsoe said. "A lot of trial and error, a lot of things we found that didn't work."

At first, the garden tried hosting fundraising events common to many nonprofits — galas, auctions, golf tournaments and similar events. In the early years, they held an annual gala under a big tent on the Great Lawn, which required complex logistics and could be thwarted by dicey weather.

The staff realized that the gala and many of these events required a lot of work without significant gains. Instead, they decided to focus on events that played on the special, unique characteristics of the place. They highlighted the natural beauty of the rocks, hills, streams, flowers and trees throughout the four seasons.

Located on a peninsula along four and a half miles of Lake Hamilton shoreline, Garvan Gardens features more than 1,600 species of ornamental and native shrubs and wildflowers, including 160 different types of azaleas, a four-acre Asian garden with a 12-foot waterfall designed by David Slawson, four unique bridges and a sandstone pavilion designed by Fay Jones and Maurice Jennings. Anthony Chapel, designed by Maurice Jennings and David McKee, provides a serene space for weddings and other events and programs. 

The Holiday Lights display was started at the beginning to help bridge a gap in revenue during the slower winter months. Bledsoe recalls that his first year there, when they flipped the switch for the lights, it blew every breaker in the garden. They took it in stride and looked for the lesson.

"It has been, 'What works; what doesn't work; how do we improve on what works?'" Bledsoe said. "There was just no manual for that. We learned it through experience."

By 2006, Bledsoe had been promoted to executive director. In the early years, the garden relied heavily on what Hot Springs already provided as a tourist draw. Those visitors were attracted to Hot Springs for the lakes, spas, thermal waters, national forest and even horseracing. Garvan Gardens began to pull those people in.

In addition, local residents were supporters from the start, embracing Garvan Gardens in a way that impressed Bledsoe and providing gifts to fund the garden's development and programming.

"We were just really special to the local Hot Springs community," he said. "This group of forward-thinking citizens of Hot Springs embraced what we were doing. Then we built upon that."

In the past 20 years, attendance at Garvan Gardens has grown from just under 40,000 to more than 200,000 annually. Garden visitors travel from all 50 states and from all continents except for Antarctica. About 200 weddings take place each year in the glass, wood and stone Anthony Chapel.

Of the 200,000-plus people who visit the garden each year, about a third come in the spring, another third come for Holiday Lights and the remaining third come throughout the rest of the year. The annual Holiday Lights display has expanded and developed tremendously over the past two decades, growing into a $1 million after-dark event that starts in mid-November and runs through Dec. 31. The garden is closed to the public during the month of January.

For many years, the garden was a "come and see" place, Bledsoe said. With the garden's master plan and under guidance from Dean MacKeith, the garden has expanded to also be a "come and learn" experience.

"With just about everything we do, folks are inspired, and folks can learn. Kids can get out and play in nature and learn about nature and learn about the effects of the timber industry on the region," Bledsoe said. "I think it's really solidified our foundation, not just in the state but in the region."

Several initiatives focus on bringing young students into the garden for education while bathing in nature. The garden hosts nearly 1,000 K-12 field trips each year. About 100 children from five Garland County school districts participate in an early entry program for special needs students. In partnership with the Dawson Education Service Cooperative, the garden has provided field trips for 900 students in kindergarten through second grades studying plant pollination. In 2023, the garden launched a pilot program for an All Children's Academy. Through this, 70 students in kindergarten through ninth grades will visit the garden eight times throughout the school year to study the natural environment.

Modus Studio, a firm led by Fay Jones School alumni, designed the Evans Tree House project, which has an underlying theme of dendrology, the study of trees and woody plants.

The garden is also regularly engaged with the Fay Jones School. Each year, the school welcomes a Verna C. Garvan Distinguished Visitor in Landscape Architecture, who teaches alongside faculty in a studio. There are student scholarships and awards in Verna Garvan's name. And the school's faculty and students undertake internships, field study and design work at Garvan Gardens.

On the horizon is another educational project, the Ross and Mary Whipple Family Forest Education Center. It's a project made possible through a collective gift by local supporters and donors. The Whipple Center design also involved a sequence of design studios led by John Folan through the Urban Design Build Studio, housed in the Fay Jones School.

"We're still going to maintain the role of beauty and 'come and see,' but we're expanding the role of education with children and adults about research and development of the timber industry," Bledsoe said. "It's an on-site, engaging experience."

Today, the garden is operated through a staff of about 60 people. Only about 15% of those are on the administrative side; the remaining 85% are the operations crew who maintain the garden year-round.

As cliché as it may sound, Bledsoe said he will miss the people the most. He's gotten to know the volunteers, who he's seen on a weekly basis through the years.

"I think we have the best staff we've had in 22 years right now. They're just passionate; they're dedicated; they're educated, and they care. And I enjoy watching that."

Looking back, he views his role as foundational — setting in place the purpose, the goals, the design of the garden. That's been his role, and he's pleased with it. Next, his successor will build upon that foundation into what it will become.

"I feel like my contribution has been to put in place a foundation on which the gardens can literally and figuratively continue to grow," he said. "I feel fortunate to have been able to put the foundation down."

The garden setting itself has been a special place for him to work for more than two decades, as he concludes his professional career.

"The experience here in the middle of nature is very restorative and spiritual," Bledsoe said. "It's a real privilege to be a steward of this space, and it's a very special, natural, God-created setting. And it's been a real privilege to represent the university and the school, but also to be a steward of this space. It's memorable. It's unforgettable."