Four years after a city of Chattanooga Department of Parks and Outdoors public survey revealed that respondents’ No. 1 facility request was a botanical garden, a group of citizens is working to bring that collective wish to life.
Chattanooga Botanical Garden is now a federally recognized nonprofit organization with a board of directors and a business license, Hannah Lanning, the board’s president, said by phone.
“It’s about time we had a botanical garden in Chattanooga, especially now that we’re a National Park City,” Lanning said, referring to an international designation unrelated to the U.S. National Park Service. “We’ve always had this reverence for our natural beauty in Chattanooga, so it seems a little odd to me that we don’t have one.”
In April 2025, Chattanooga was the first city in North America to receive the National Park City designation, which recognizes cities across the globe that lead community-driven efforts to make their cities greener, healthier, wilder and more connected.
On a tour of the Huntsville Botanical Garden in Alabama over the summer, Lanning was inspired by its origin story involving a grassroots effort by volunteers that began in 1980.