Before the Frost: Saucer Magnolias at the J.C. Raulston Arboretum

Magnolia x soulangeana 'Sundew'

'Tis the season of Magnolias, and thankfully the weather in Raleigh, N.C. has been mild enough for us to have a gorgeous bloom show without the frost nipping the buds before they open. And the best place to see Magnolias in the state is arguably the J.C. Raulston Arboretum.

Magnolia x loebneri 'Merrill'

Unfortunately, living in the south of Raleigh makes it difficult to make it up to the J.C. Raulston Arboretum as often as I'd like. Open House at Juniper Level Botanic Garden has taken up my free time on the weekends recently, so I jumped at the opportunity to wander around, if only briefly, when I had to run up to N.C. State University this evening.

Check out more photos here!

Just in time too.... Raleigh is due for three days of arctic weather!

Most everything you see here is a Magnolia

Meeting the Thunderbird: Plant Collections Symposium in Vancouver, BC

The Thunderbird stared down at me from above the gateway to Customs. It was an imposing, majestic creature overlooking a hallway full of dioramas of Pacific Northwest woodland scenes and First Nations artifacts in the Vancouver Airport. The symbolism was different from the Native American tribes I was familiar with in the eastern part of the continent….

But I knew this magnificent figure’s gaze was something to heed. This was going to be a trip to remember.

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Botanic garden curation has been a passion of mine since my time with Tom Clark at the Polly Hill Arboretum back in 2014. I have grown and learned a lot since then (thankfully!); but, without the opportunities, guidance and support I got at PHA, I would never have been aware of this very specific field within horticulture.

I attended the APGA’s Plant Collections Symposium at the end of my time on the Vineyard as a capstone to my internship and found it incredibly valuable to my development as a botanic gardens professional. The symposium only occurs every four years, so there was no way I was missing it this time around, even if I was new in my position at Juniper Level Botanic Garden (and I am grateful for Tony for letting me have the time to represent JLBG there!).

The American Public Gardens Association held their annual conference in Hamilton, ON in 2017, and that was the first time I had ever been to Canada. This time the Plant Collections Section had settled on Vancouver, BC. I was excited to explore a new side of not just Canada, but the North American continent.

The Fall color in Queen Elizabeth Park was mind-blowing. People, including myself, wandered around in awe of the incredible shades of red, orange, and yellow.

The trip from Raleigh to Vancouver was a long one. The 3 a.m. alarm was jarring and the disorienting taxi ride to RDU gave the day an air of dreaminess. Was I awake? We ran away from the sun for hours, gliding over the patchwork of farms that covered the heartland of the United States. Three planes later I was riding the Metro from the airport to my AirBnB. It was only 12 p.m. in the afternoon, but I’d been awake for almost 16 hours.

My tired brain refused to go to bed, and instead demanded food and exploration. I was only a couple blocks away from a Vietnamese place and then only a few more blocks from Queen Elizabeth Park, so off I went.

The park was beautiful, and the weather was sunny and clear (apparently, this is quite unusual). Even still, I barely made it past 6 p.m.

Looking down in the garden of Queen Elizabeth Park

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Becky looks down into the canopy of a western red cedar forest at the Capilano Suspension Bridge walkway.

Of course, fate would have it that a dear friend of mine from Edinburgh would be in Vancouver. How could it not be? A chance, very tired, end-of-night post brought us together that Monday before I fell asleep.

Becky and I met up the next morning, and she drove us out to the mountains to experience the views over the city and let me get a glimpse into the cedar forests. If only I had reached out to her sooner! We could have gone much further afield! That’s on me though. Even still, we had a lovely time exploring and hanging out with each other!

Becky dropped me off just in time to join up with the conference mixer at a bar near the conference hotel, where Tom Clark and Elaine Chittendon (of the Botanic Garden at Smith College, who I’d met just four years prior (see the link for the blog post)) were chatting right inside the door!!!

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Click here for more photos and check out the captions 

for more of the story!

Wednesday the conference began at the University of British Columbia. I took the early bus to the campus with all the sleepy morning commuters. The sun hadn’t even risen yet as I made my way across campus to search for a coffee shop. I found one and arrived at the conference site just in time to meet the buses as they arrived from the hotel. Whew!

The morning talks were very stimulating, and the UBC folks kept us entertained with a walking tour of UBC’s campus and an afternoon of rotating sessions before the poster session/mixer. I had a chance to catch-up with some cool folks and meet new people, while also strolling through a beautiful afternoon.

~~~

Thursday’s venue was at VanDusen Botanic Garden and was a packed day of panel discussions and talks. The day was gorgeous outside and the colorful skyline of trees teased us from the wall of windows in the conference hall. It was tough to wait until the afternoon to have a walk through the Garden I took the bus back to the hotel and spent the whole trip talking to Mike Motta about my time at NTBG. He caught me up on all the developments in the last six years. It is amazing how time flies, how some things change and others do not. That evening I hung out with some cool folks for Indian food and drinks (these folks included Jaimie from Newfields (Indianapolis Museum of Art), Tom Clark, Nick Courtens of the Betty Ford Alpine Gardens, and Tim Timbaut from the Huntington!). It was a good night on the town.

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Cecropia leaves contrasts against the geometric panes of the Bloedel Conservatory

Friday was my last full day in Vancouver and I wanted to see a couple more places before I left. Even with a plan, chance messages and meetings sent me on a different path. I ended up crossing paths with Tim and Ian at the Bloedel Conservatory at Queen Elizabeth Park, and walking through the Park with them. We talked about our respective gardens and swapped stories (and found some curious gardening as we walked to the bus stop). Ian and I took the bus to UBC after Tim headed off to the airport, and Ian told me about when he worked for Tony back when he was at N.C. State. We went separate ways, as I went to find Becky for one last gathering. Becky and I walked solemnly through the Cultural History Museum at UBC, and talked about what we saw and shared our collective experiences that we felt were reflecting back at us in the artifacts around us. I ended up joining her on an evening of going-away gatherings. It was quite the zig-zag across Vancouver, but well worth the late night to hang out with Becky on such an occasion.

~~~

Saturday began the same way Monday did: Too early. The Arab gentleman quietly drove me to the airport and deposited me at my gate by 4:45 a.m.. I was really early and had more than enough time to get some coffee and eat the rest of my Indian food for breakfast. I was not looking forward to this day of plan rides…… something about the return to RDU with no one waiting for me depressed me severely. Even still, it was a beautiful day for flying and it went relatively smoothly. A biker-looking guy dropped me back at my house a little before 7 p.m. Thank goodness I had Sunday to recover!

The backbone of the mountains of British Columbia.

Hello from Hamilton, Ontario: the Report from the American Public Gardens Association Annual Conference

Amanda Wilkins, Curator of Collection, Mobile Botanical Gardens

June 19-23, 2017

Butterfly in the Niagara Parks Butterfly Conservatory

Summary
I attended the American Public Gardens Association’s Annual Conference in Hamilton, Ontario (final day photos). More than 500 people from gardens, nurseries, non-profits, and governments from across North America attended. I mainly followed the Plant Collections Development Professional Track during the conference. Evenings were spent either getting dinner with colleagues or at networking receptions. Please see the hyperlinks for more photos.


Take-aways from the Conference
• It was great to meet and catch-up with colleagues in the American Public Gardens Community. I believe it is especially important to physically meet people beyond emails. It makes getting started on projects with people much more visceral.
• Many conference attendees were interested in including the Mobile Botanical Gardens in upcoming garden trips. This is a huge step for us as a garden, as these are the people who will spread the word about us.
• I had offers to write articles for the APGA’s journal. I intend to follow through with this, especially regarding our major collections.
• There are many ways we can play a role on a national level with on-going projects in research, conservation and horticulture. I am excited for these opportunities for the Gardens.
• I learned a lot about the Plant Collections Professional Section and the National Plant Collections Network, which will help aid the Gardens as we move towards getting our Camellia and Rhododendron collections certified. Leaders in the sections have offered to help me as I get started on this project.

Touring the Kayanase Greenhouse

Monday, June 19
• Indigenous Plants and Traditions in the Heart of Ontario Tour
We spent the day touring culturally-relevant sites to the Six-Nations Mohawk Native Americans. Sites included: Kayanase, a Native American-led Community Initiative that teaches the community about culturally-relevant plants, and collects and grows native plants to central and southern Ontario and sells them to community members and for ecological restoration projects in and around the reservation; and a community-initiated agricultural project that includes a farmers market, a cooking and preservation class, a 24-hour fresh-food market, and a turtle garden full of culturally-significant plants.

• International Session and Dinner
The opening panel session featured a series of short talks about “Who is your community? People? Plants? Habitats?” and a panel discussion featuring several panelists that included the secretary general of the Botanic Garden Conservation International, the director of the American Public Gardens Association, a representative of the horticulture industry lobbying group AmericanHort, a visitor from New Zealand, the president from the Portland Japanese Garden, and the one and only Dr. Peter Raven. It was a great discussion that lead to great talks over dinner.


Tuesday, June 20
• First-time Attendees Orientation
We got the run-down of how to make the most of the conference and had a chance to do some networking with other new attendees. I saw some familiar faces from N.C. State, but also met a gentleman from Denver Botanic Garden and the director of The Mermaid in California.

• The Plant Requisition System: Automating Data Entry for Plant Records Database
We learned about the system the Chicago Botanic Garden uses to track and accession new plants.

• Sustainable International Collaborations: American Case Studies
Three speakers talked about three different international partnerships they were participating in in regard to research, conservation, and plant trialing. The North American-China Plant Exploration Consortium is a multi-institutional partnership that coordinates and funds trips to the wilds of China to collect and catalogue the Chinese flora. Andrew Bunting talks about how other consortiums he was involved with used NACPEC’s model. Finally, Patrick Griffith, the director of the Montgomery Botanical Center in Miami, FL, talked about his work with three projects in the Bahamas, Belize, and the Dominican Republic. I especially appreciated his method of: Sharing resources, sharing credit, and sharing outcomes.

• Plant Collections Section Meeting
The discussion at the section meeting involved the release of the curatorial ethics policy, the upcoming Plant Collections Symposium in Vancouver, BC in 2018, core documents needed for plant collections professionals, and how we can better share what we’re doing. I had a chance to talk about our work with Rhododendrons and Camellias, and had folks talk to me afterward about this.

• What is a Beacon and Why Does My Gardens Need One?
The gardening social media phone app GrowIt! conducted the session to talk about what the app does and focused on the capabilities of targeted tours using beacon technology. There is potential with this technology for MBG. It alerts people who use the app when they are near the beacons and can help the garden collect demographic information about its visitors. Additionally, people can use the app to go on a guided tour of the garden.

• Opening Reception
It was an opportunity to socialize and network with other attendees. I coordinated with other Polly Hill Arboretum interns to meet up for dinner. We had six interns come, including five of the past seven curatorial interns. It was very exciting.

Polly Hill Arboretum Intern Reunion Dinner! Pictured: Matt Lobdell, Emily Ellingson, Cat Meholic, Tory Stewart, Jaime Morin, and myself.

Wednesday, June 21
• Magnolia Curatorial Meeting
I sat in on the meeting to see when other gardens were doing and what the capabilities are within the group. I believe there is potential for MBG to get involved with growing some of these plants and helping with conservation of sub-tropical and tropical Magnolias.

• A Compass for Progress in Plant Collections Section Meeting
This is one of the most exciting sessions of the conference! Section leaders released a preliminary report of a self-assessment tool the Plant Collections Network has been developing to help gardens benchmark their collections and hopefully better prepare for gaining a Nationally-Accredited Plant Collection. I found this to beneficial to helping me start thinking about accrediting our Camellia and Rhododendron collections.

• Keynote Speaker: Colonel Chris Hadfield
I had my reservations about having a retired astronaut as the keynote speaker of a public gardens conference, because what could he have to say to a room full of garden folks. But, Colonel Hadfield turned out to be one of the most relevant speakers. He told a story of how we’re all a part of a world-wide garden, all floating in the same bubble of air and water. It was a fascinating perspective and a hopeful message.

• Introduction to IrisBG
IrisBG is one of the two dominant plant records systems available in the industry today. I am considering this as the system we should adopt moving forward, although I have not formalized this. This session was an introduction to how the system works, and was especially helpful as it was full of folks who mainly use BGBase, which is probably the dominant system available, so there was a great discussion of how the systems compare. I was trained on BGBase, so I know the pros and cons of its usage. IrisBG and the staff have done a great job of responding to feedback from their community.

• Rapid-fire Presentations
I sat in on the first round of presentations to see how it ran. It was a lot of fun and full of presenters and attendees. They covered a lot of ground, but it was interesting. I was especially struck by the news that none of the 7th and 8th graders one of the presenters interviewed knew what a ‘horticulturist’ was.

• Poster Session and Drinks
Several folks stopped by my poster to hear about what my findings were and there was a lot of interest in my topic: “What are Trees in a Botanic Garden Worth?”

Me with my poster.

Thursday, June 22
• Plant Collections Network Forum
This session was focused on folks who have a nationally-accredited collection, but, again, I hope to help MBG join their ranks with our Camellia and Rhododendron. The session centered around discussions. There is potential for partnering with the USDA to help grow species or genus-specific collections for conservation and horticulture.

• Leading Audiences to Take Action: A New Approach from the Field of Conservation Psychology
This was a brief session that focused mainly on a structured exercise analyzing how to help engage and inspire garden visitors to become active in conservation efforts.

• Plant Nomenclature and Taxonomy Section
I sat in on this group to see what work the section was doing. They’d compiled a list of Viburnum cultivars and were looking at other groups to engage with. It was a good group discussion, and there is potential to help the horticulture industry.

• Niagara Parks Tour and Reception
There were many options to tour the park and I chose to tour the Niagara Botanical Gardens. The director of the Horticulture School gave us a tour of the major sites and talked to us about the history of the gardens. The tour ended with a stop in the Butterfly House (!!!) and their restored prairie. After our tour of the garden we got to walk along the Niagara River and then along the rim of the falls.

Friday, June 23
• What Botanical Gardens Can Learn from New, Innovative Urban Parks to Build New Audiences
The session looked at many new parks across the United States and discussed ideas that had proven to be successful for bringing more people into the garden in downtown Oklahoma City.

• Rapid-fire Presentations- This is when I presented
My presentation about the longleaf pine forest at MBG was well-received despite some technical difficulties. Attendees were impressed that we were able to burn, but also the progress that has been made.

• Networking Lunch
I have to admit, I was a little tired by this point, and I wasn’t networking effectively. Even still, I met a lady from North Carolina who’s at a garden I haven’t been to yet.

• Plant Jeopardy!
Of course, since we had all the plant nerds in one place there had to be Plant Jeopardy.

• An Afternoon in Paradise: Royal Botanic Garden
The afternoon culminated in self-led tours of the main garden and the newly-renovated rock garden of RBG. I had a chance to catch up with folks for a final good-bye and had the great fortune of walking around the rock garden with the gentleman from The Mermaid I’d met the first morning. A great way to finish off the week.

Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh- the first glimpse

The first book I opened in the library at the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh was:

“It is a piece of weakness and folly merely to value things because their distance from the place where we are born: thus men have traveled far enough in the search of foreign plants and animals, and yet continue strangers to those produced in their own natural climate.” – Martin Martin, 1698, A Late Voyage to the St. Kilda

The old, but poignantly relevant, quote struck a painful cord in my homesick heart. Second thoughts were rife in my mind as I tried to struggle with why I’d decided to travel so far from home.

And then I saw the familiar form of a Metasequoia glyptostroboides, dawn redwood, marking the entrance to the garden and my heart skipped. This was why I was there.

The menagerie of plants I saw in the Scottish Heath Garden, Rock Garden and the other areas I could reach in my brief breaks showed me I still had tons of plants to learn and that was why I was there. I had a purpose and I had time to devote myself to it.