Korean Bell soon to be at Meadowlark Garden

By the spring the first phase of the Korean Bell Garden at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens will be complete. For several months artists from Korean were on site at Meadowlark building the beautiful pavilion in the photo above. This traditional structure was all made from hand carved wood, with the tiles shipped directly from Korea.

Jeung Hwa Elmejjad-Yi the President of the Korean American Cultural Committee just returned from another trip to Korea this week. On this trip she met with the Governor and other senior officials from Gyeonggi Province. This province of Korea is going to fund the bell that is being cast there. The first two images below are of the actual bell that is being made for Meadowlark Gardens, and the bottom one is of another bell that is of a similar size. This bell will feature images of Cardinals, Great Blue Herons, and Dogwoods, all natural images from Virginia.

The Republic of Korea (federal government) has already contributed to this project, as have numerous private donors. When complete this spring this will be the only Korean bell pavilion in a public garden in North America. Last spring volunteers helped plant 100 trees native to Korea around the site the pavilion stands today. A winding trail and large stones help create a scene very similar to what you find in the palaces of Korea.

This extremely exciting project has been made possible by the great donations of the Korean American Cultural Committee, and the amazing dedication and hard work of Jeung Hwa Elmejjad-Yi.