The gardens then officially began in 1934, when Dr. Frederic Moir Hanes, a faculty member at the Duke Medical School, persuaded Sarah P. Duke to give $20,000 to finance the planting of flowers in the debris-filled ravine.

By 1935, over 100 flower beds consisting of 40,000 irises, 25,000 daffodils, 10,000 small bulbs and assorted annuals graced the lawns.

Unfortunately, the heavy rains of that summer and the flooding stream completely washed away the original gardens.

Ellen Biddle Shipman, a pioneer in American landscape design, was chosen to create the new garden, known as the Terraces, in the Italianate style.

The 36th line of latitude goes directly through the Duke Gardens; there is a plaque designating a spot through which the parallel runs.