INTERNATIONAL PEACE GARDEN - The 2,300-acre garden that straddles the U.S.-Canadian border, signifying the longstanding peace between the two countries, has fallen victim to rotting wood, sinking foundations and dandelions.

Many of the 194 buildings and other structures at the International Peace Garden have rotting timbers, crumbling stone or both. Steel rods are beginning to peek through the sides of a monument made of four 120-foot-high concrete towers that signify the four corners of the earth.

Dandelions are everywhere in the garden. In spring, before the garden's thousands of flowers are planted, the weeds provide the only bright color.

To save the garden, its operators decided last year that they had to tear it down in the eyes of the public.

"We painted some seriously not-so-nice pictures of the garden in the newspapers," said Doug Hevenor, who was the park's chief operations officer at the time and is now its chief executive officer. "It was a disparaging picture. That was a planned campaign. We were bringing things to (people's) attention that they might not have been noticing."

It worked.

North Dakota lawmakers this year doubled the amount of operating money for the garden and provided funds not only for long-overdue repairs, but for expansion as well. The end result, after money from Canada's federal government and Manitoba province and private donations are added in, is nearly $1 million over the next two years for repairs and more than $4 million to begin a $32 million expansion project.

"That's why I came here," said Hevenor, a southern Ontario native who has owned horticulture businesses in the United States and Canada but wanted to get into nonprofit management. "This (job) came open and some friends suggested the park needed some tender loving care. No one has looked outside the box here for a long time."

The expansion plan for the park, bisected by the 49th parallel that creates the international border, includes a new stone-and-glass interpretive center, a tropical plant observatory, and a conflict resolution center that would mimic a Camp David-style retreat. The garden has a memorial made of 10 steel girders from the World Trade Center destroyed by terrorists in 2001.

Hevenor hopes to have the project finished in seven years. The more immediate needs, though, are the repairs needed to both buildings and the land itself.

The park was conceived by Ontario horticulturist Henry J. Moore in 1928, and dedicated in 1932 on land donated by Manitoba and North Dakota. The garden is celebrating its 75th anniversary this summer.

"We've never had the money to bring in an orchard high-reach truck to do (tree) pruning," Hevenor said, ticking off just a few of the items on a long to-do list. "It's been a decade since granular fertilizer has been applied to the turf. Last year was the first time in five years we've put herbicide down for broadleaf weeds and dandelions."

A picturesque waterfall that provides the main drainage system needs valve and stone work, and is nearly blocked from public view by unretarded tree growth.

"I can go to any structure on this place and show you something that needs fixing," Hevenor said, driving around the park.

One of the first major repairs will be to the garden's main lodge, one of several buildings built by Civilian Conservation Corps workers in the 1930s during the Great Depression. The building's foundation is sinking in one area, and its floor and ceiling need major work.

The group Preservation North Dakota listed the building - which Hevenor said has been visited by every sitting North Dakota governor since it was built - first on its list this year of the most endangered historic properties in the state.

"It's a very important part of North Dakota and Manitoba," said Marsha Gunderson, president of the preservation group. "We really feel that statewide the CCC projects have gone relatively forgotten or unnoticed … and they have reached a point now where things are starting to degrade." Canadian funding for the park's operation has been consistent, and Hevenor said that country's government has committed to funding half of the $32 million expansion project. But contributions from North Dakota - which promotes the "Peace Garden State" on its license plate - have declined in recent years.

Hevenor said support in the Legislature waned, especially after the late Minot Rep. Brynhild Haugland, who served for more than half a century and was a Peace Garden supporter, did not seek re-election in 1990.

"Brynhild Haugland would go down and say, 'we've got a roof leak, we need $30,000,'" and get the money approved with no trouble, Hevenor said. "Over time, we lost that connection to the Legislature."

Ed Anderson, mayor of the Manitoba town of Boissevain and the provincial premier's designate on the nonprofit Peace Garden board, credited park officials with their campaign to get more money out of North Dakota, and said Canadian directors on the board are "ecstatic about the response."

"I think everyone realizes it's hard when trying to raise that amount of money at a time when there isn't a lot of money available," Anderson said. "The USA was at war. There just wasn't a whole lot of money they could come up with."

Before this year's Legislature, park officials successfully lobbied to be included in the governor's budget. The Peace Garden now has its own section in the budget bill for the state Parks and Recreation Department.

"Before, it was a one-line appropriation identified as a biennium grant to the Peace Garden," Hevenor said. "Essentially we waded in with open hands and said 'thank you."'

Sen. Aaron Krauter, D-Regent, said legislators recognized it was time to boost funding for the garden. He was part of a group of lawmakers who toured the garden after the 2005 Legislature.

"We saw a phenomenal facility that was in need of some major repairs and had been neglected for a number of years," Krauter said. "We saw real needs versus a wish list. The (lawmakers) came away from there like, 'wow, we can't let this slip away."'

The state also is contributing $1.5 million toward the $32 million expansion project. Krauter said it is impossible to predict if that trend will continue in future years, but he said the Peace Garden has secured a place as "one of our priorities."

"It's one of those things that North Dakota can be proud of," he said. "We've got it on our license plate. If we're going to do that, let's showcase it."

Hevenor said the garden, which generates about $700,000 in annual revenue itself through fees and other profits, will do whatever it takes to find the money to complete repairs and finish the expansion project by 2014.

"We're looking to turn this facility into a year-round destination center," he said. "If there's a stone that needs turning, we're going to turn it over."