The Arboretum Terrace Garden has emerged from its monthslong renovation with two new fountains and shade structures and a new name: the Arboretum Terrace Garden and Lois Crowe Patio.

About 100 people gathered there on May 10 to celebrate the garden's new look and the couple who paid for it: retired UC Davis biologists John and Lois Crowe.

Also on hand was landscape architect and UC Davis alumnus Michael Glassman '77, who designed the fountains and pergolas, or arbors — when he was not hosting Garden Police on television's Discovery Home Channel.

Lois Crowe commended the arboretum staff and the "Wednesday Volunteers" who do the planting, weeding, pruning and other chores to keep the garden in tip-top shape. She is an arboretum volunteer herself, leading tours and serving as a member of the board of directors of Friends of the UC Davis Arboretum.

The 7-year-old terrace garden sits on the east side of the Borders bookstore at the Davis Commons shopping center, not far from the east end of the arboretum and its waterway, which runs all along the south edge of the main campus.

Like other parts of the arboretum, the garden habitat is Mediterranean — a region with a climate similar to Northern California's. But Lois Crowe said something was missing.

"The terrace typified all the aspects of a Mediterranean garden except for the presence of a fountain or water feature," she said. "We always had to ask our tour guests to imagine the sound of water."

They need not imagine anymore. The Crowes offered to donate a single fountain, then two, as well as a pair of pergolas at the back end of the garden.

In acknowledging the gratitude shown at last week's reception, Professor Emeritus John Crowe said the garden improvements were his gift to his wife, and their gift to the campus and community.

"I had been interested in doing something for the campus in honor of Lois for some time," he said. "We settled on the terrace garden as a project that would make an attractive addition to the city of Davis and the campus. It seemed like the ideal place to contribute to both."

Lois Crowe retired in 2002 from her research career in molecular and cellular biology, and John Crowe retired in 2006 as a professor in the same field. They jointly invented a number of products in the biomedical field, the patents for which have been top revenue producers for UC for many years.

The centerpiece fountain of the Lois Crowe Patio is part of a 4-foot-tall octagonal planter with walls of rust-and-black flagstone. Eighteen-inch-wide sheets of water pour from four sides of the planter, falling into a circle of river rock.

At the back end of the arboretum sits a 10-foot wall of the same kind of flagstone, a backdrop for a wall of water splashing down onto more river rock.

"I'm very pleased with the way it has turned out," Lois Crowe said. "The design suits the site and 'finishes' it. … It's a very nice space to be in now."

John Crowe added: "We hope the new garden will serve as a welcoming entryway to the arboretum, one of which the campus and staff can be proud."

Ellen Zagory, the arboretum's director of horticulture, said the garden's plantings comprise the "best of the arboretum."

Zagory leads the terrace garden's Wednesday Volunteers, among them UC retiree Gary Beall, who worked as a communications specialist for the systemwide division of Agriculture and Natural Resources

"This is one of the benefits of retirement — you get to come and do this," said Beale, who has been volunteering at the terrace garden for two years. He said he liked getting his hands dirty "without deadlines, without hassles."

A side benefit, he said, is learning proper care and feeding for his garden at home.

Zagory said the volunteers do great work, but she added that the garden embodies a lot more than good looks. "It has educational content, too," she said, referring to identification signs for almost all the vegetation, as well as more than a dozen larger, interpretive signs.

Lois Crowe said her hope is to see the terrace garden grow in popularity, which in turn can lead people to the rest of the arboretum. Together, the terrace garden and the entire arboretum can be "a source of inspiration for their own gardens," she said.

Today, in addition to supporting the arboretum, the Crowes are members of the board of directors of UC Davis' Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts.

John Stumbos is a writer for the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Dave Jones is associate editor of Dateline.