LEHI -- Karen Ashton is delighted with the progress being made on the Discovery Gardens at Thanksgiving Point.
Alan Ashton is excited over the Dinosaur Museum being built on the grounds that will house the tallest and the longest dinosaurs known to man.But that is all just the beginning, they say.
"I think of it like tossing a pebble into a pond," Karen Ashton said. "The ripples just go and go, forever. I like to think of Thanksgiving Point as a place where the ripples of peace and thanksgiving and joy go on forever. When that happens, this will truly be a thanksgiving point."
Karen Ashton said the gardens are set to open to the public on July 24, 2000, to what she expects to be thousands of visitors. The museum should also open its first phase in the summer of 2000.
The gardens, laid into a natural secluded bowl on the Point property, will include a miniature railroad playground for adults and children with more than a dozen traveling trains chugging along more than a mile of track, through tunnels and up a mountain sculpted of Styrofoam.
A secret garden inside a brick-walled courtyard will feature wildflowers and overgrowth while a formal rose garden has structure and arched walls. The parterre garden has a standing iron carousel with stationary flower-bearing prancing horses.
A fragrance garden will have lilacs, herbs and sweet-smelling flowers while a hillside will feature all kinds of range grasses. The largest free-falling man-made waterfall in the world will be part of the garden experience, she says, along with an Italian water garden and a butterfly garden designed to attract butterflies and fascinated garden lovers.
"Thanksgiving Point won't ever be done," said Alan Ashton. "My wife wants to see a craft village here with all kinds of opportunities for learning and education.
"The future holds a lot more of what we've been doing. It's truly going to be an endeavor where people working together will create a place people will enjoy."
Both Ashtons said the future Thanksgiving Point will need an army of volunteers to help with operating and maintaining the gardens and related facilities.
"We want it to be family-friendly," said Karen Ashton. "So we need volunteers, and we want ideas, any ideas anyone has to make it better and better."
Thanksgiving Point now includes 550 acres of property in the northeast Lehi area, said Clive Winn, president of the Thanksgiving Point Institute. Of those acres, 55 are gardens surrounded by an award-winning golf course that actually came into being because the gardens would need a buffer, he said.
"Gardens are good for us," Karen Ashton said. "They give us peace. We live lives that are much too fast. I'm so excited. I can't wait to see that first child look at Noah's Ark and spot the bear prints in the pavement. I'm going to go after him and just give him a kiss."