A Feast of Edens: Nurturing the Bond Between People and Plants

Photo Courtesy of Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects

Talk at 2:00 pm followed by reception and book signing at 3:00 p.m. 

The Garden Conservancy is thrilled to bring the leading American landscape architect Thomas L. Woltz to Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, Missouri this spring. 

The design of botanic gardens and arboreta offers a rich experiential and educational platform for connecting people to the horticultural diversity of our planet. Thomas Woltz has spent 25 years with his team designing innovative examples of gardens that reveal specific cultural history while stewarding the ecology of place. In this talk, he will present a selection of public gardens that explain his firm’s design philosophy: that every piece of land has a story to tell. Woltz will discuss the firm’s designs for Mt Cuba Center in Hockessin, DE; Bok Tower Gardens in Lake Wales, FL; the National Arboretum of New Zealand; and Citygarden in downtown St Louis. Each unique design is a portrait of place revealing specific history through horticulture. Woltz will also offer highlights of the firm’s new monograph, The Land is Full, that presents this same philosophy in twelve recent public gardens and parks.

About the Speaker

Photo: Dan Winters

Thomas L. Woltz, Senior Principal of Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects (NBW), leads a cross-disciplinary practice that integrates science and history to revitalize public landscapes across thirty states and twelve countries. By blending restoration ecology with cultural storytelling, Woltz’s award-winning designs reveal erased histories in urban parks, post-industrial sites, and educational campuses. An alumnus of the University of Virginia with master’s degrees in architecture and landscape architecture, his visionary work has earned him recognition as a WSJ. Magazine Design Innovator and ASLA Fellow. Currently serving as Co-Chair for The Cultural Landscape Foundation, Woltz continues to shape the sustainability of the public realm, most recently being honored with the 2025 Frederic Church Award.