2017 Preservation News
The Ruth Bancroft Garden announced the death of Ruth Bancroft on November 26, 2017, at the age of 109. Watch a short tribute video produced by the Ruth Bancroft Garden.
Our preservation staff traveled to the West Coast in the fall of 2017 to monitor conservation easements and attend several garden preservation-related events.
On October 17, 2017, Greenwood Gardens announced the appointment of Abby O'Neill as executive director.
We compiled reports on the impact of the fall 2017 season's hurricanes on people and gardens in Texas and Florida.
Garden Time TV highlighted Lord and Schryver, cutting edge landscape designers in the 1920s based at Gaiety Hollow, their home and garden in Salem, OR.
Charleston's Post and Courier featured South Carolina's topiary legend Pearl Fryar.
The Winter-Spring issue of Magnolia, the quarterly journal of the Southern Garden Historial Society, included a great detective story on the Elizabeth Lawrence Garden in Charlotte, NC.
Hollister House Garden in Washington, CT, was featured in the May/June issue of American Gardener.
Pearl Fryar received the 2017 National Garden Clubs Award of Excellence.
An April 27, 2017 joint press release from the Chicago Park District, Chicago Parks Foundation, and the Garden Conservancy announced the selection of renowned designer Piet Oudolf to prepare a planting plan for the Jensen Formal Garden at Humboldt Park in Chicago.
The Hannah Carter Japanese Garden was designated a Historic-Cultural Monument by the Los Angeles City Council.
Peter and Sofia Blanchard received the 2017 Foundation for Landscape Studies Place Keeper Award for their success in converting Greenwood Gardens into a public garden.
Garden Conservancy board member Robert Balentine and his wife, Betty, were honored in Atlanta in early April by the Library of American Landscape History for their work with the Southern Highlands Reserve in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
The Illustrated Book of Edible Plants, by Jack Staub, proprietor of Hortulus Farm, was released by GIbbs Smith in February 2017.
In late January, 2017, in response to our letter of October 2016 concerning plans to replace the historic Enid A. Haupt garden at the Smithsonian Institution, we received a letter from the Smithsonian indicating that alternate plans were being explored.
A new book by Johanna Silver, The Bold Dry Garden, about the Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek, CA, was reviewed by Pacific Horticulture and the UK Royal Horticultural Society's monthly magaine, The Garden.