New Director Shapes UW Botanic Gardens For The 21st Century

By Trina Litchendorf

It's an exciting time for Northwest plant lovers. Taking the helm of the University of Washington Botanic Gardens is David J. Mabberley, former dean of Oxford's Wadham College and an internationally recognized expert in plant taxonomy.

One of his first actions was to collect under one umbrella the Washington Park Arboretum, Union Bay Natural Area, Center for Urban Horticulture, Elisabeth C. Miller Library, and the Otis Douglas Hyde Herbarium. The new entity is known as the University of Washington Botanic Gardens.

"This is a way for all five entities to relate in a more meaningful way," explains Sue Nicol, former manager of education and outreach at CUH. "The umbrella name also brings us in line with other botanical gardens around the country that also manage several smaller entities under one name.”

Many people are unaware of the University's role within the Washington Park Arboretum. The City of Seattle owns the land, most of the buildings, and maintains the roadways. However, the plant collections are owned and maintained by the University. In addition, the UW is also responsible for the educational and research aspects of the park. The Arboretum Foundation completes the triad of organizations maintaining and operating the Arboretum, providing fundraising capabilities and volunteer services.

"So in fact, there was an interdigitation of the two even before [the UWBG] name, and now this makes it clear to people outside that we're one big thing. That helps when you're trying to represent the organization internationally," says Mabberley.

The Center for Urban Horticulture is the administrative center for the UWBG, and it is where all of the plant propagation for the arboretum takes place. In addition, it houses the Elisabeth C. Miller Library and the Otis Douglas Hyde Herbarium. Located in the newly rebuilt Merrill Hall at CUH, the Hyde Herbarium contains the voucher collection for the park and the Elisabeth C. Miller library houses over 10,000 books on horticulture.

The final component of the UW Botanic Gardens is the Union Bay Natural Area, which was once a city landfill until the mid sixties; now, it serves as an outdoor classroom for the UW's restoration ecology lab. It has been named by the Seattle Audubon Society as one of the best places in the city for bird watching.

"It's a place that is so ecologically important," says Mabberley. "There are over 200 species of bird that drop down in this place, which is quite incredible to have as part of a botanic garden," he notes. "So on the animal front, as well as the plant front, we have a lot of exciting things to show."

The 230-acre Arboretum is recognized as having one of the most diverse collections in the country of woody plants, such as oaks, conifers and magnolias. "Internationally, the Arboretum is a significant collection as it stands. It has some of the very, very best collections of Japanese maples, hollies," says Mabberley.

And the Arboretum is only going to get better. Recently work has begun on implementing the Arboretum's 20-year Master Plan. Current collections will be improved and new displays will be added including eco-geographic exhibits, which will be recreations of forest and plant communities from different regions of the world. Also, greater emphasis will be placed on conservation and education.

Mabberley is working with the community to forge a new vision for the facility. "If you look around at botanic gardens in this country they all kind of copy each other," he says. "We can do something quite fresh and which is germane to today's problems." To this end, he recently hosted an open house at the Center for Urban Horticulture seeking community input in reply to the question: What does society want or expect from a modern botanic garden?

"We have a great opportunity here to do something which is within the mission of our parent organization, the College of Forest Resources," says Mabberley. "It's all to do with sustainability, so that the whole idea will be that gardening moves to a much more ecological footing in terms of use of resources. We have the opportunity to make a botanic garden that addresses the concerns that people have in a modern era."

Mabberley holds an academic position at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, and is also attached to the Royal Botanical Gardens in Sydney, Australia. "With David Mabberley at the helm, we now have lots of great connections with other botanical gardens around the world," says Nicol. "He's a great asset to furthering the development of our world-class arboretum."

Trina Litchendorf studies oceanography at the University of Washington and is an avid home gardener.

Images

Top: Azalea Way in bloom at the Washington Park Arboretum. Photo: Joy Spurr

Bottom: David Mabberley brings considerable expertise at a time of growth and change at the University of Washington Botanic Gardens. Photo: Trina Litchendorf