New $12 Million Garden Provides a Green Retreat in Dallas

A new development is sprouting at the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden.

On Tuesday, October 3, the green space will unveil A Tasteful Place, a $12 million, three-and-a-half-acre edible garden overlooking White Rock Lake, with the Dallas skyline in the distance.

Designed by landscape architects SWA Group, Buchanan Architecture, and the arboretum’s horticultural team as a ferme ornée (with garden designer P. Allen Smith serving as a consultant), A Tasteful Place is both beautiful and productive.

Gardens are filled with vegetable beds, herbs, and flowers; fruit and pecan trees grow in an orchard; and a lagoon winds around a lighted fountain.

A 3,600-square-foot glass pavilion serves as an event space and teaching kitchen, where chefs explain garden-to-table cuisine prep and offer cooking classes. To accommodate a long table for outdoor dinners, a wide center walkway stretches across the garden with an adjacent trellis-covered patio.

Nutrition presentations, kid-friendly cooking classes, and horticulture demonstrations are also in the works. On Tuesday, October 3, Knife chef John Tesar showcases his skills at 1 pm, and Smith will provide a demonstration from 11 am to 1 pm on Sunday, October 15.

Robert Lyford (chef/owner of farm-to-table McKinney restaurant Patina Green Home and Market) arrives Wednesday, October 18 at 10 am, and Fearings chef de cuisine Eric Dreyer hosts a cooking program Tuesday, November 7, from 11 am to noon — roasted pheasant with corn and sage pan stuffing.

In conjunction with the garden’s opening, the arboretum is debuting a philanthropic group for 21- to 40-year-olds called Growing Friends. The group hosts its inaugural event, Chefs Under 40, on Wednesday, October 18, from 6 to 9 pm.

Oddfellows chef Anastacia Quiñones, Luck at Trinity Groves chef Daniel Pittman, Harvest Seasonal Kitchen chef Andrea Shackelford, and Chino Chinatown chef Uno Immanivong (who opens Red Stix Asian Street Food this fall at Legacy Hall in Plano’s Legacy West) will whip up hors d’oeuvres and cocktails. Click here for tickets.

And, save the date: Sunday, October 15, a Garden Gala Party will fête A Tasteful Place’s opening, chaired by Barbara Bigham and Robin Carreker, with honorary chairs Diane and Hal Brierley.

Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden, 8525 Garland Road, 214.515.6615.