THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, December 6, 1995 TAG: 9512060424
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GUY FRIDDELL
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
Two guides, boys age 3 and 6, assured me Monday night after the half-hour tour by car that this season's Garden of Lights at the Norfolk Botanical Garden is bigger and better than ever.
It is the only meandering two-mile course over which nobody objects to moving at a snail's pace.
There's so much at which to marvel as the car creeps along.
Among new scenes whomped up in colored lights is a 7-foot-long bullfrog, a startling apparition that springs from a lily pad and soars 36 feet to land in a simulated lake.
The arc of his long leap peaks at upwards of 14 feet in the air.
Another newcomer is a ruby-throated hummingbird, eagle-sized, with wings shimmering in motion.
Among old favorites newly enhanced is a stretch of woods against which snowflakes, big around as a washtub, fall twinkling.
Their numbers are doubled over last year's. All of them, instead of just a few, are animated to sparkle and glitter. Another fresh entry, a scarecrow, waves a warning above the patch of orange-sun pumpkins.
Many scenes have been repositioned to show them to better advantage. The giant gingerbread house, formerly off to one side, is now set dead ahead at a turn.
The house of sweets seems to have grown even more prodigious between seasons. One almost feels impelled to dismount from the car to break off a chunk to munch.
The Botanical Garden's staff, on its own, pepped up the lighting here and there and ended by designing and installing a rainbow.
Rusty Pulley, grounds supervisor, yearned for a rainbow to arch over the way and touch down to a pot of gold beside the road. The commercial firm that designs exhibits priced a rainbow at $11,000, beyond the Garden's budget.
Pulley's staff, expert after working last year to install the show, finished this year early and decided to build a rainbow themselves. Which they did at a cost of $200.
About a quarter of the way along, the rainbow rears over the road in layers of shining blue, green, orange, and red that spill into a pot of gold coins.
`It was something we didn't have,'' Pulley said. ``I thought it went with the Garden's theme and it was an easy design for a first try at constructing a display.''
The Garden's employees call it Rusty's Rainbow.
The holiday displays will run through Jan. 1. Hours of operation are 5:30 to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 5:30 to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
Admission is $7 per car Monday through Thursday and $9 per car Friday through Sunday.
Proceeds from the Garden of Lights help fund the nonprofit Botanical Garden's upkeep and the planting of new attractions. ILLUSTRATION: RICHARD L. DUNSTON color photos/The Virginian-Pilot
The Botanical Garden's grounds staff built the 20-foot-tall rainbow
for $200 - $10,800 less than a company wanted.
The Garden of Lights features a windmill amid flowers that ushers
the viewers into scenes of spring.
Formerly off to one side, the towering gingerbread house is now set
dead ahead at a turn. It's the show's grand finale.
by CNB