Horticulture

Doug Croft grew up in rural Virginia, a hobby gardener who studied finance at Virginia Tech and later took a job budgeting and forecasting for defense contractors. He had all the trappings of success. Then one day - epiphany. He was outside his Alexandria, Va., home, "correcting the mistakes of a landscaping company hired by the condo association, when it suddenly dawned on me that this could be a career. I could get paid to do this," recalls Croft, who decided to return to Virginia Tech to study horticulture.

William Young, one of Philadelphia's first botanists, collected material for his book on native North American plants by peering over the garden wall of his rival, John Bartram. Young's action represents one of the darker moments in the history of horticulture in Philadelphia. Young, who published his book in Paris in 1783, was willing to go to extraordinary lengths to become the first man to introduce exotic American plants to European connoisseurs. "He was no humble man and was rather sneaky," said James Mears, a former head of botany for the Academy of Natural Sciences and the curator of a new exhibit on the city's horticulture.

In 1773, the same year a crowd of colonists crept aboard English ships in Boston Harbor and dumped cases of tea into the dark waters, a Chester County native named Humphry Marshall planted a small garden behind his home in Marshallton, West Bradford Township. To present-day horticulturists and historians, Marshall's gentlemanly pursuit is now considered to be a turning point in American history as dramatic as the Boston Tea Party. Marshall, a stonemason, miller and Quaker farmer who built his own home, complete with a small observatory and a hothouse, probably thought nothing of his gardening pursuit, which he took up in earnest at the then-advanced age of 51. Advised by area doctors and even a local herbalist, known as Indian Hannah, on what to include in the garden, Marshall planted rows of medicinal herbs, native plants, and exotics grown from seeds he obtained from a group of gardeners and scientists he regularly corresponded with in Europe.

Delaware County high-school students in vocational-education programs can turn their thumbs green through a new horticulture curriculum that will be offered at Tyler Arboretum in Middletown Township in September. The Delco Chamber of Commerce, the arboretum and the Delaware County Intermediate Unit have designed the vo-tech horticulture class to prepare students for jobs in such fields as turf management. Hands-on instruction for the year-long course will be conducted at the arboretum, said Nancy Quinn Kelly, intermediate-unit spokeswoman.

Moaning to Rodney Haines about the damage that deer do in a garden brings little sympathy. "How would you like to contend with a bunch of bears and a few giraffes in your garden, not to mention emu and elephants?" he counters. As horticulture foreman for the Zoological Society of Philadelphia, Haines deals with the above and plenty more, and loves it. He's worked at the Philadelphia Zoo since 1977 and is always prepared for a challenge. When you visit the zoo this spring, take a look at the horticulture in and around Bear Country.

Four students who attend The Shipley School, a private school in Bryn Mawr, recently won awards at the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society's Harvest Show. In the youth division, Sarah Hamilton, a senior, won first prize for her Haworthia aristata. In the dish-garden division, Diana Schwab, a junior, won second prize, and Jenna Fitch, a junior, won third prize. Naomi Haskell, a junior, won the High School Gardeners Award. The Shipley horticulture club, Sprouts, won the blue ribbon for Horticulture and Artistic Classes.

A student would find it hard to choose a more attractive campus than Longwood Gardens, one of the nation's leading display gardens. Longwood sponsors a wide range of short courses and also offers a two-year intensive program for professional gardeners. Since the two-program began in 1970, 114 students have graduated. About 90 percent have gone on to careers in horticulture, and of these, half are in commercial businesses, and the rest work in public gardens and arboretums. Among the graduates are directors of horticulture for university campuses, general managers of nurseries and curators of plant collections in arboretums throughout the country.

Charles Holman, 83, formerly of Rittenhouse Square, a retired lumber company executive and horticulturist, died of cancer Monday, Dec. 12, at Northeast Regional Hospice in Scranton. Mr. Holman volunteered and donated trees for the colonial garden maintained by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society in Society Hill. He was a volunteer at the Shofuso Japanese House and Garden in Fairmount Park, and a volunteer at Morris Arboretum in Chestnut Hill. "Charlie has been a friend, a hardworking horticulture volunteer, and supporter for over 30 years," said Paul W. Meyer, director of the Morris Arboretum.

In the starkness of midwinter, bright, vibrant flowers were in full bloom last weekend at the most unusual of places: the Deptford Mall. Horticulture students from throughout South Jersey competed in the 27th annual New Jersey Southern Regional Student Flower Show at center court by Macy's. They came from 11 technical and high schools, including Camden County Technical Schools and the Burlington County Institute of Technology, and created close to 250 ornamental displays in more than 30 categories.

The Camden County Technical School in Gloucester Township appears to be a regular campus of bricks and mortar, but behind the school lies a secret garden the public may not know about. Now through mid-June, the public is invited into this secret world to partake of the beauty of carefully cultivated gardens, whose paths lead to waterfalls that drop into ponds filled with freshwater fish. Wild animals, such as white-tailed deer, red fox, red squirrels and nonpoisonous snakes, make their homes in a wildlife area in a far corner.

Volunteers make the world go 'round - or so it seems when Pamela Sodi is the volunteer and the "world" is the Horticulture Center in West Fairmount Park. With help from a handful of others - one regular volunteer and occasional others - Sodi is working to restore nine small, neglected gardens behind the center and fill the pots and a flower bed at the entrance. And she wants to do it all by May 10, which is National Public Gardens Day, a tradition that dates to 2009 and is intended to raise awareness about the importance of the nation's botanical gardens and arboretums.

The worksheet is two full pages of questions - about likes and dislikes, pets, dining habits and entertaining style, favorite seasons and vacation spots. There's even this one: "Do you have any personality quirks we should know about?" Sounds like an online dating service laying the groundwork for a possible relationship. And, in a very real sense, that's true. This is about ground work - the making, and long-term maintenance, of a garden, something many of us spend less time thinking about than what to serve at a holiday dinner.

Barnes' quirky restrictions Art critic Edward Sozanski faults the Barnes museum for failing to display the best of what it owns to maximum effectiveness ("Disdainful Albert Barnes and his daunting collection," Sunday). Other art critics concur in more insistent terms. As an illustration, Matisse's "The Red Madras Headdress" is confined warehouse-fashion among a wall of miscellaneous canvases. Years ago, when the court permitted selected paintings to travel to earn money for the bankrupt Barnes Foundation, that dramatic masterpiece was featured and captured world attention.

Anyone familiar with the gardening scene today knows that women are a huge presence, and influence, in almost every stratum. So it was instructive, if disheartening, to read Ball Publishing's new book Women and Their Gardens: A History from the Elizabethan Era to Today by Catherine Horwood. It's been a long slog. Today, gardening may be the great equalizer along fault lines of gender, class and age, but historically, horticulture was like any other discipline - very discriminating, in the worst sense.

Margaret Wright Schneidman Tilghman, 85, a former fashion model and volunteer with cultural and horticultural organizations, died of heart failure Sunday, Dec. 4, at Beaumont, a retirement community in Bryn Mawr. Mrs. Tilghman was a member of the Women's Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art for more than 40 years and was a volunteer guide at the museum for several years. In 1977, she cofounded the Philadelphia Museum Craft Show. Now in its 35th year, the annual show features expert craftsmen selected through a competitive jury process.

Charles Holman, 83, formerly of Rittenhouse Square, a retired lumber company executive and horticulturist, died of cancer Monday, Dec. 12, at Northeast Regional Hospice in Scranton. Mr. Holman volunteered and donated trees for the colonial garden maintained by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society in Society Hill. He was a volunteer at the Shofuso Japanese House and Garden in Fairmount Park, and a volunteer at Morris Arboretum in Chestnut Hill. "Charlie has been a friend, a hardworking horticulture volunteer, and supporter for over 30 years," said Paul W. Meyer, director of the Morris Arboretum.

After it closed on July 3, the Barnes Foundation in Merion locked down tighter than Guantanamo. Until the new building on Benjamin Franklin Parkway opens next summer, the fabled art collection is inaccessible. This doesn't mean, however, that the entire Barnes organism will hibernate during the hiatus. The education program, the foundation's raison d'etre, will continue through the 2011-12 academic year, albeit in a modified form. In fact, fall classes begin in just nine days, on Sept.

G. STOCKTON Strawbridge looked out of the front window of his department store on East Market Street, regarded the banging pile-drivers, the grinding trucks, the dust, the torn-up asphalt and smiled. He was a happy man because the project of converting East Market Street from the dreary, shabby thoroughfare it had become was the dream of a lifetime. And who better to make that dream come true than John F. Collins? John Collins, a landscape architect, urban planner and a man who didn't hesitate to get on his knees in the dirt and plant flowers, was the head of Delta Group, which had the contract in the late '80s to restore a commercial street that had once been Philadelphia's major thoroughfare.

A story Friday about horticulture careers wrongly described Sara Levin's program of study. Levin, who taught high school Latin for four years, is studying for a master's degree in public horticulture through the Longwood Gardens Graduate Program. The Inquirer wants its news report to be fair and correct in every respect, and regrets when it is not. If you have a question or comment about news coverage, contact assistant managing editor David Sullivan (215-854-2357) at The Inquirer, Box 8263, Philadelphia 19101, or e-mail dsullivan@phillynews.com .

Doug Croft grew up in rural Virginia, a hobby gardener who studied finance at Virginia Tech and later took a job budgeting and forecasting for defense contractors. He had all the trappings of success. Then one day - epiphany. He was outside his Alexandria, Va., home, "correcting the mistakes of a landscaping company hired by the condo association, when it suddenly dawned on me that this could be a career. I could get paid to do this," recalls Croft, who decided to return to Virginia Tech to study horticulture.