NATURAL RESOURCE: MARC WOLF

Formerly an Obie award-winning playwright and actor, Marc Wolf turned to native plants for a regeneration of sorts. After attending the School of Professional Horticulture at the New York Botanical Garden, he began working for the Mountain Top Arboretum in Tannersville – a hidden gem of the Catskills.

"I used to identify trees in my New Jersey backyard when I was seven years old. After working in the theatre in New York City for 30 years, I felt I needed to reconnect and started studying at the Botanical Garden, which reawakened my inner kid.

The Arboretum is 178 acres at an elevation of 2,400 feet, but it’s still very accessible with gardens, easy trails and boardwalks. Part of it is stunning hemlock-spruce forest. Walking through, it’s so dark but then it opens up onto a huge mountaintop marsh. It’s a breathtaking transition. The best part of the job is caring for and studying the native plants. I love tending the trails. I love working in our new Education Center. There are twenty-one tree species literally holding it up. It smells and feels like you’re in a forest. You can see the branching patterns. It’s just great to be in there."

-Marc Wolf

Excerpt from Natural Resources: 50 Stewards of the Catskills, available at www.catskillsvisitorcenter.org