The butterfly- themed carpet bedding in the rose garden during my third year at the Niagara Parks Botanical Garden and School of Horticulture celebrated the opening of the Butterfly Conservatory that attracts hundreds of thousands more visitors to the grounds every year.
My formal training in horticulture began at the Niagara Parks School of Horticulture in Niagara Falls, Canada, where I earned a Niagara Parks Diploma (NPD) through a combination of academic courses and a highly regarded practical curriculum. The three-year, full-time and year-round program is one-of-a-kind. The hands-on experience I gained as a student working for the Niagara Parks Commission in the Botanical Gardens provided me with a solid background in horticulture and experience managing ornamental displays and natural spaces.
The student residence is at the heart of the Niagara Parks Botanical Garden, which made studying for the many plant ID tests a little easier. There were ten who graduated along with me my year, one of us being the 500th to graduate from the School during it’s first 75 years in existence. Photo courtesy Niagara Parks Commission
Annual displays such as this one in the Parterre Garden were designed and maintained by students. The School grew over 60,000 annuals every year.
The School offers a unique alternative to post-secondary education. Academic courses build on the knowledge gained by maintaining the plant collections, gardens and landscape features in some of the most visited and iconic gardens in the world. Third-year students lead student crews as they perform work and projects within the Botanical Gardens to develop important leadership skills, and are experienced managers when they graduate.
The Dumbbell Pond at the rear of the student residence is as beautiful and accessible to the public as the rest of the Botanical Garden
The Butterfly Conservatory, a tropical oasis and one of the largest glass-enclosed buildings in the world, opened in the Botanical Garden during my 3rd year and included new greenhouses for the School to increase and modernize production and learning
My special project area, the Herb Garden, featured beds with sharp edges and Eucalyptus, Coffee and Rosemary standards during my 1st year, before the garden was completely renovated.
After renovation the Herb Garden had more oomph with less maintenance, and hard paving in critical areas where turf always failed
It was a surprise to meet Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter strolling through the Botanical Garden one day, and a great honor for a Canadian boy like myself to shake hands with a former President of the United States.
Only at the School of Hort. Nothing like a new sod carpet in your room when you return from a birthday dinner! The humidity was around 200% thus the fan. And note the fine cutting job so the door would swing open. I must say, fall is a good time for sod!
88 beds of roses with bare soil were a weeding nightmare, but the hardest job in the rose garden was the mowing-- every Friday before 1000's would visit each weekend
One of the requirements to earn your NPD from the School of Horticulture is to complete a 12-week internship during your third year. I selected the internship program at the Arnold Arboretum, where I learned that I could weave my passion for history (I have an Honours B.A. in history from the University of Toronto) with a career in horticulture. I was invited to return to the Arboretum as the Apprentice to the Living Collections in 1998 and was hired full-time in 1999 as a Skilled Gardener, as a Horticultural Technician in 2000, and held a position as Arborist from 2001-2005.
The bucket truck I shared with my partner John Olmsted, was the only truck owned by Harvard University that required a Commercial Driver’s License.
The mission of the Arnold Arboretum is to grow all species of woody plants that will tolerate the climate in Boston. To have value to the collection each specimen must grow from seed collected in the wild, even the replacement Sorbus (Mountain ash) pictured here beside a struggling mature tree of the same species. I’m proud to have been one of many to contribute to Harvard University’s collection of woody plants and the oldest arboretum in North America.
Timing was everything when it came to moving this mature Prunus sargentii to a new location in the Rose Garden along with the rest of the rosaceous plants in the Arboretum’s collection
The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University is a living museum of temperate woody plants and a 281-acre public park in Boston. It is one of the jewels in the Emerald Necklace, a 7-mile-long network of parks including the Boston Common and Franklyn Park, designed by Frederic Law Olmsted in 1878.
For several years I worked with Head Arborist John Olmstead on the 2-man arborist crew. We removed a grove of white pines (above) and a myriad of mature shrubs and trees of questionable provenance to make way for the Leventritt Shrub & Vine Garden and space for 745 new accessioned plants. A P sargentii, namesake of the Arboretum’s founder, was transplanted despite it’s maturity
I opened the door when opportunity knocked and found myself on the east end of Long Island, managing horticulture operations on multiple properties encompassing over 1,000 acres and miles of coastline. When people would ask what I do for work I would tell them I was the luckiest horticulturist on Long Island (and I was!) It was an exciting opportunity to become involved in projects I never dreamed I would be doing.
I made a welcome return to Massachusetts to work for a non-profit for which I had volunteered years before. The Trustees of Reservations (The Trustees) is the nation’s first and Massachusetts’ largest preservation and conservation nonprofit and I was a steward of beautiful landscapes and landmarks of historic and cultural value.
As an Operations Manager I managed stewardship, conservation, capital projects and general operations on 44 Trustees properties throughout the Berkshires, Pioneer Valley and Central Massachusetts, working hand-in-hand with the West Region Director to bring focus to priorities.
Before starting FLORUM and this current chapter of my life, I was General Manager and then Director of the Trustees’ Northwest Portfolio and managed all stewardship, engagement, and enterprise activities on over twenty properties from Williamstown to Athol.
Thank you for scrolling this far! If you were wondering about this photo of Haggert S. Cochrane— he and others helped with the informal training I have received! CLICK ON THE IMAGE to see more of Haggert’s garden