West Virginia Botanic Garden in Morgantown near Cheat Lake is the state's only botanical garden, combining a public park with designed gardens and reclaimed natural terrain. Spread across about 85 acres, it includes 4.5 miles of walking trails, eight gardens, and the former Tibbs Run Reservoir, once part of Morgantown's waterworks and drained in 1980. Founded in 1983 by West Virginia University professor George Longenecker and volunteers, the site was leased by the city for the garden in 1999 and has remained strongly shaped by community volunteer work. Updates in 2023 and plans for a visitor center in 2024 reflected its continued growth as a walking landscape and statewide destination.