As the superintendent of two cemeteries that date to the 1850s, Chris Cooke knows the importance of thinking for the long-term. “In any given day my problems can go back to 1853,” he said of his day-to-day duties managing Oak Hill Cemetery and Arboretum and Locust Hill Cemetery and Arboretum. Both are located in Evansville, Ind. […]
As one of the largest employers in the south side of San Antonio, Texas, and with 2,000 acres under its care, Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Texas, Inc. (TMMTX) is in a position to have an impact on its community. When TMMTX opened an 11,000-square foot pollinator garden this spring as part of a recent upgrade to […]
In the garden Betty Truax has built around her home near Charlottesville, Va., there are plenty of places to sit and observe. That’s by design, because without taking the time to stop and look closely, you might miss all the action. It’s through close observation that Truax has witnessed and photographed some of her most […]
The word “legacy” comes to mind a lot for Ann Marie Chapman, visitor services manager at Wertheim National Wildlife Refuge. That’s because the 2,500-acre preserve where she works, located about 65 miles outside of New York City on Long Island, exists because of a gift made 70 years ago. Maurice Wertheim, a New York investment […]
One hundred years ago, a naturalist named Jens Jensen took regular weekend trips with his family to the ends of Chicago’s streetcar lines, seeking meadows and open spaces where he could practice botany and find native plants to bring home with him. The idea of setting aside places where people could make connections with nature […]
When Mary McGee first became a master gardener in 2013, she had no idea that the volunteer group helped maintain an arboretum within a popular public park just a block from her house. So when she became involved with the Rady Park Arboretum, a project she co-chairs with fellow master gardener Winnie Buursink, one of […]
Kevin Parris often reminds his students in the horticulture program at Spartanburg (SC) Community College how lucky they are to study within a short drive of five arboreta. “I tell them every year, you can’t go to a university in this country that has access to the grounds that we do within a stone’s throw and […]
Every Wednesday, Master Gardener volunteers from the Richmond (Virginia) area come to the Goochland Campus of Reynolds Community College. They tend to an herb garden on campus that is a joint project between the Goochland-Powhatan Master Gardeners and the students enrolled in Reynolds’ horticulture program. It was installed in 2015, and serves as both a […]
Arboreta are a highlight of many college campuses. They provide a place for horticultural students to flex their muscles and for the campus to showcase plant collections and the types of vegetation that thrive in a school’s region. But why should this opportunity to connect people with new knowledge about plants end at the arboretum […]
How many cities have a full-time artist on staff? Talk to Chris Seale and you’ll quickly learn that that’s how he sees his job as horticulturalist for the city of Waxahachie, Texas. Seale was hired two years ago to lead beautification efforts in this city of roughly 32,000 just south of the Dallas suburbs. “I love that […]