MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WBOY) — The West Virginia Botanic Garden in Morgantown wrapped up its summer concert series Thursday with live music from the Cooley Gang.

Officials with the garden said that being able to host events on the lawn with their pavilion allows them to share the arts with people through events like concerts, performing arts and play productions. They emphasized that the garden is public and that it’s here for the people in West Virginia.

As we’re finishing up with our concert series, we are now getting ready to launch into fall and we have so many exciting things coming up. One of the biggest attractions here in the fall is our nonprofit scarecrows that nonprofits direct all across the garden that showcase the work that their nonprofits are doing. A lot of people like to come out and see these beautiful scarecrows as they walk the dogs and stuff around the loop. And speaking of dogs and Halloween we have our howl-o-ween doggy trick-or-treat which is a lot of fun where dogs come dressed up. And then of course our fall children’s festival which is in mid-October and that’s our biggest event of the year.

Philip Smith, Executive Director of the West Virginia Botanic Garden

The botanic garden does not charge admission as all of the events are funded through donations programming in order to keep it open to the public. Smith said that the WV Botanic Garden is a nonprofit organization and that they really rely on the community to support the arts and programs that they offer.

“It’s really exciting right now with the garden,” Smith said. “We just opened our new event facility this last year and coming up in the spring we’re gonna be opening our new visitor center which I’m really excited about. And that will have a gift shop in the café. And then we’re gonna be paving this fall as well so there’s just lots of things that are happening here, and it just has too many to mention in just a short time.”

Smith also said that there has been a lot of growth at the garden and that fellow West Virginians should be proud. He also said that things are always changing and that over the next several years they will be making a lot more improvements.