Park opens for first time in 50 years
By ROBERT HANKINS EDITOR

ORANGE - The animals of Shangri La Botanical Gardens and Nature Center probably won't notice when tours begin today for the first time in 50 years. The place is so large it can make crowds look small.

With the first presentation at 10 a.m., visitors should arrive early at the Lutcher Theater parking lot to take a shuttle.

"I'm excited about the changes taking place in our city," said Franklin Gans, a retired educator who greeted the media in Monday's preview. "We used to have buses running up and down Green Avenue all the time when the Navy base was here, and now we have them again."

Gans, 64, never went to Shangri La as a kid. He now volunteers in the garden center.

Managing Director Michael Hoke said much of the grounds are true to creator H.J. Lutcher Stark's original gardens of frog ponds, purple martin houses heron-nesting area.

Tours of the 262-acre facility begin with a boat journey along Adams Bayou, winding around huge corners of pond cypresses and bald cypresses, red maples and cypress knees.

Wood ducks take flight from the water in groups of two or three. On the shore are towers for long-eared bats.

At Beaver Outpost, the boat lands near a large field that can be used for "star parties" of celestial events. Millions of the flowering plants Salvinia bring a yellowish red color to the water.

In a meadow are several bluebird boxes and a bat house built for 100,000 bats.

"The Survivor," the 1,226-year-old pond cypress, rests with large branches jutting out, uneven and lopsided. Not a particularly beautiful tree because of its age, a small amount of resurrection fern brings a little green to it. Camphor trees and small amounts of poison ivy dot the trail.

The water tour ends, and visitors enter frog pond areas on the way to the heronry. The ponds are bordered by stones imported from Bordeaux, France, said to have been walked on by St. Joan of Arc.

Heavy green bells hang in a tree. Stark originally liked to ring them upon entering the garden, but now restored and because of their age, they are for show only.

In the heronry on Ruby Lake, egrets rest in trees or swoop to catch fish. The Heronry Blind allows a more intimate view with moving video cameras. One of Stark's houseboats lies half-sunk near the shore.

The gardens themselves, filled with bright azaleas and daffodils, feature a wall with a circular hole left to let a tree grow through it.

"We like to think we work around nature here, not over it," said education director Kathy Barrios.

A stroll through the Spiral Garden, near the man-made Pond of the Blue Moon and featuring colorful curly willows, ends in Shangri La's central section near multimedia and educational rooms, cafe and gift shop.

It is hoped the facility will win national recognition and improve the quality of life in the Orange community. Orange Mayor Brown Claybar anticipates 40,000 visitors to Shangri La during its first year.