The highest point between the Atlantic Ocean and the Blue Ridge Mountains is a 550-foot, man-made mountain in Chantilly at the National Botanic Garden. Its creator is nature lover, businessman, and co-owner Peter Knop, who spent 30 years creating it.
Using reclaimed materials found by highways and from construction sites, it’s nearly indistinguishable from the surrounding land. The mountain, for example, looks entirely natural, even though it was created from fill dirt—truckload by truckload—as the building boom shaped Northern Virginia. With his wife Beata Knop, whose sculptures adorn the grounds, the couple has opened this garden to give the D.C. area a large-scale destination where visitors can experience nature.
The project, Peter notes, really began with his parents, who collected plant specimens wherever they traveled—whether it was to Mount Vernon or a European estate. A passion for plants was quickly instilled in Peter, and he’s taken 250 acres of the family’s nearly 900-acre farm to build the garden. “It’s not about building a business; it’s about building beauty,” he says. “I want this to be an oasis for nature and art lovers.”

There is more than one way to grow a garden—and it doesn’t always mean tending to pretty flowers in bloom. “This is a nature garden, not a flower garden,” says Peter. “It’s creating something in a short time frame that nature might take thousands of years to make.”
A nature garden plays with—and adds to—what’s already there, bringing out the beauty inherently in the landscape. It’s not about planting neat, tidy rows of roses, because nature, after all, is messy by nature. It’s about sowing the seeds of a bamboo forest, for example, and allowing it to spread freely to accentuate the sense of Zen.
And for Peter’s wife, Polish artist Beata, the 250 acres is the ultimate canvas. “Nature is a school,” she says. “And we’re always learning from the landscape.” At the entrance, an 827-foot dragon sculpture erupts from rock. Like the mountain, it’s less Disneyland and more about being seamlessly intertwined with its surroundings. If Peter is the brawn of the operation—moving, or really building, mountains—Beata is the visionary, the dreamer.
Before Beata met Peter at a garden party in 2005, she was making collages and designing interiors. But their shared passion over bamboo connected them, and Peter soon asked her to design land-focused art for the garden’s Kyoto section, where a bamboo forest grows. It’s the largest collection in the country and is harvested to feed the pandas at the National Zoo. The rock and water feature she’s created there uses found materials, giving them new life. Beata notes that they often hold private yoga classes in the shade under the bamboo’s leafy foliage.

The Xeric Garden shows off drought tolerant plants, including cacti, yucca, sedum, and lavender that emphasize the importance of waterwise gardening. It’s a beautiful collection and displays the staggering variety of plants that can be grown in Virginia.
The couple’s passion for nature is only matched by their dedication to recycling materials. “We’re probably the largest recycled garden on the East Coast,” says Peter. The giant beams in Hobbit Town are repurposed railroad ties; its rounded doorways are made from discarded concrete pipes and wood salvaged from an old horse stable. There’s a wooden storage shed that was once a smokehouse from an 18th-century farm nearby, and a Mondrian-inspired installation painted on concrete salvaged from nearby Dulles Airport.
For Peter and Beata, this massive project fills the need for an educational garden and art space. “It’s a way to connect with people and to give them an experience they’ve never had,” he says.
The National Botanic Garden has 10 public events a year—from art festivals to holiday celebrations—each lasting three to four days. Spaces like the stone barn, Hobbit Town, and a lakeside pavilion are all available for weddings, parties, and corporate events. NationalBotanicGarden.org