MHS FY22 Annual Report

Massachusetts Horticultural Society ANNUAL REPORT

Fiscal Year 2022

FROM THE PRESIDENT

Good gardening is not instant. Sure, an effect can be created, a landscape installed. But gardening is about the joy of the process, the step-by-step engagement with the land, the learning, the failure as well as the success. It happens in succession, and the big reveal is (mainly) at the end. The soil must be prepared, the seed sown and nurtured, the challenges neutralized before the garden blooms.

So it is with Massachusetts Horticultural Society. 2022 was the second year of a planned three-year transition program. In 2021 we ‘prepared the ground’, finding the hidden challenges, investing in the conditions needed to thrive, becoming the organization we needed to be. Important, but often neglected work.

In 2022 we were able to move on to ‘sowing great seeds’. Our strategic plan theme was ‘Gardens, Infrastructure and Networks’. As you will see throughout this report, we have greatly expanded our team and expertise, enabling us to initiate multi-year horticulture projects: The historic Olmsted Asian Garden is being revealed from the undergrowth, making it accessible for visitors and for repurposing; The Manor House is receiving stabilization work to preserve it intact for the next decade and our keynote garden areas are all receiving a planting update and revitalization. Externally, we have focused on strengthening our networks and we are seeing the green shoots of this work emerge. We were able to receive significant funds through the state budget thanks to the wonderful advocacy of local politicians and, critically, our members. Thank you all! We have also created a Friends Council to provide more in-depth updates and engagement for some of our most involved supporters and volunteers.

And, so, as for any gardener anticipating the turn of the seasons, we look into 2023 with great hope and expectation. As we enter this new year, our strategic theme is ‘Reaching New Audiences’. We will be looking to activate our new garden areas, invite more guests with more events and activities, and critically, move beyond the garden gates to new communities.

We are so thankful for the support, guidance and involvement of you, our members and supporters. In this coming year there will be more ways to be actively involved than ever before and I look forward to sharing with you a year of new blooms.

With the thanks and appreciation of all the staff, Board and volunteers of Massachusetts Horticultural Society,

James Hearsum President & Executive Director

DEPARTMENT REPORTS

Horticulture

FY22 saw many transitions within the horticulture department. Coming out of the first wave of the pandemic, the Garden closed for the season on October 31, 2021 with a skeleton crew to guide us into Festival of Trees. In late winter, Karen Daubmann joined the staff as Director of Garden and Programs and began interviewing for new horticulture positions.

We welcomed Schumacher Landscaping in March for two days of spring cleanup and pruning. More than 600 person hours were spent tidying the Garden – tasks included edging the Trial Garden, pruning hydrangeas, cutting back perennials in Bressingham, and preparing the Italianate beds for planting.

Summer 2022 saw us battling weeds and drought while trying to get the irrigation up and running. Our team, along with irrigation technicians repaired controllers, clocks, valves, and heads all throughout the Garden. Once our annuals became established in the Trial Garden and Italianate Garden, we were able to irrigate in the early mornings to keep everything looking good for visitors and events.

Mid-May saw the start of Erin Fogarty, our Horticulturist – Conservation and Historic Gardens, hired to spearhead the transition of the 70-year unmanaged Olmsted Garden. Erin’s sprit is contagious as she welcomes volunteers to assist in battling back the invasive plants throughout the site.

Mid-summer we fine-tuned the staffing plan and transitioned James Marlowe from facilities into Horticulture. James comes to us from the west coast where he became proficient at growing on a large scale. He’s excited to be “back east,” learning a broader plant palette as he digs into projects here at the Garden.

As we geared up to close out the fiscal year, we began planning and designing next year’s floral bedding, planned for next summer’s exhibition, and made lists of the plants to save from the Garden before frost. We invested in many new types of dahlia and salvia and hope to build up our stock plants over the next few years.

As the year drew to a close, our newest hire, William Leonard, was making his way across the country from his most recent post in Colorado. William is taking on our newly created position of Horticulturist – Growing and Sustaining. He will work to revive our growing program, by tending the propagation greenhouse, triple greenhouse, and poly house to grow specialty plants for our gardens, containers, and plant sales.

With our new posts filled, we head into FY23 full of promise. We’ve planned, ordered, and scheduled many new initiatives and reinvigoration projects to bring more excitement to the Garden.

Education

Our education team has expanded this year as we welcomed Carrie Finkelstien, Garden Educator, to the team. Carrie has helped to lead our Plantmobile programs, which came back with a bang after the pandemic. In the month of May alone, our education team was out 4-5 times a week visiting classrooms. Not only were we busy outside of the Garden but our youth drop-in programing also expanded. An activity developed for garden visitors during the summer of 2020, Garden Tails story time has become a core program in our education lineup. These story time sessions welcome families twice weekly to hear stories of plants, animals, and our local ecosystem. Our youth programming includes the staple Family Fun in the Garden on Saturday mornings, which features creative and engaging horticultural activities.

In 2022 we also added a series of free drop-in programs for adults to our schedule. Throughout the season we offered programs for anyone from avid gardeners to houseplant parents to stop by and interact with our garden educators on a variety of topics—indoor plant care, pesticide problems, terrariums, fertilizer woes, and more. We’ve learned a lot from these programs. The informal, one-on-one time gives our staff more opportunities to answer individual questions as well as learn more about those who visit the Garden.

Programs

This summer, programming in the Garden really started to take off. From drop-in programming to Member Appreciation Week, we started to look at different ways to use our Garden space. Throughout the summer we hosted three fun-filled weekends for families visiting the Garden. In April we celebrated Arbor Day, two spring days filled with dendrochronology, leaf rubbing workshops, and free saplings. In July we opened a community favorite, our model railroad display, Snow Village! Hundreds of visitors came to immerse themselves in the whimsical fun of model railroading for Christmas in July. This is the second year for this event and it’s sure not to be the last. In September we rung in the harvest season with our Goddess Celebration. Two days complete with how-to’s on preserving, garden fresh recipes, DIY flower crowns, and food tastings.

In late summer, Mah-Jongg in the Garden became the popular place to be on Wednesday afternoons. This popular Chinese tile-based game has brought many fans to the Garden, providing interaction and chatter with like-minded individuals. We’ve seen such a sense of community arise from their time together.

This season we were thrilled to offer Music in the Garden free to our members. It has grown to become a summer staple and we couldn’t have been more thrilled with where this series has brought us. From classical to classic rock, symphony to jazz we’ve welcomed over 2,400 people to the Garden through this musical series.

Bee travels to bee balm (Monarda fitulosa) in Bressingham Garden.

Development

This was a year of continued strategic growth and expansion. We are grateful to all our supporters who have led us on this path to success. Our Corporate friends sponsored our Festival of Trees, 2022 Garden Opening and Music in the Garden. Grants supported our growing Library, August Adventures (a free day in the Garden) and critical unrestricted funding. With generous support from our members and supporters, we funded additional environmentally friendly gardening equipment, thousands of perennials for a refresh of our Bressingham Garden, and the salary for new horticulturists.

Because of the work done in fiscal year 2022, you will see new volunteering, education and conservation programs introduced as we continue the exciting project of restoring our beloved Olmsted Asian Garden in 2023. We could not have done this without you.

As I reflect on the challenges we have all endured during the past few years, we are grateful to you for supporting MHS. Your membership, donations, participation in classes and events, and your visits to the Garden have given the entire staff enormous hope and excitement about what the future holds for Massachusetts Horticultural Society. Thank you for your trust in us to make the world a better place through horticulture. We look forward to continued growth and sharing with you that your investment in us is a wise one.

Volunteers

FY22 saw a complete revamp in our volunteer department. In spring we onboarded a new volunteer software allowing us to better track and report on volunteer hours. This software has made our volunteer management much more efficient and professional. We’re now able to communicate and work with our volunteers much more effectively, leading to a better volunteer experience.

Alongside this new software brought something that has been missing from MHS for many years, a true volunteer orientation and training program. New volunteers are now welcomed with an onboarding session via staff where they’ll learn more about MHS, the Garden, and all the ins and outs of volunteering with us. This onboarding process engages our volunteers from the get-go, and gives our staff opportunities to create more enriching volunteer programs.

With this software, complete with an engaging user experience and training process, we are able to build robust volunteer programs, structured around garden improvements and seasonal needs. Most notably, we recruited passionate volunteers who have worked on Phase 1 of our Olmsted Asian Garden Restoration and Repurposing during the 2022 Garden Season. From dedicated groups of Library and Festival of Trees volunteers to administrative, and horticulture volunteers, FY22 has brought about a strong community of supports who lend their time and skills to help us extend our reach and fulfill our mission.

Siblings visiting on our August Adventures free admission day play in the Trial Garden and Hartley Botanic greenhouse.

Functions

2022 brought us the busiest and highest number of events ever for functions and events in the Garden. The events team managed 116 events from October 2021 through September of 2022 with 80 of them falling between May – September.

We were delighted to welcome more corporate and non-profit events this year. In years past, most of these have been hosted at hotels and convention centers but with organizations still wanting to be cognizant of guest comfort, many made a move to outdoor venues. These ranged from daytime company barbecues to evening tented fundraising events for ALS and Greenlight Foundation.

With our Director of Events being out unexpectedly from May through the first week of October, a season of 116 events proved to be challenging. However, with the dedication of our full staff, MHS was able to deliver high-quality events for our clients, ensuring that their experience at the Garden at Elm Bank was a positive one.

Meredith Jane Photography

Library

As the first horticultural library in the United States, the Library’s historic collections contain a wealth of horticultural, scientific and art items. Its Archives preserve important records and artifacts of the Society and document its history. These are viable resources for the Society’s staff, members and the public and the Library continued its effort to make these items identifiable online.

With the dramatic growth in horticulturally related research and educational institutions throughout the country in the latter part of the 20th century, the Library’s mission and scope of its holdings changed. Today, the Library’s focus is on preserving its past legacy and on collecting contemporary horticulturally relevant items, with an emphasis on New England.

In 2022, the Library was active with research, volunteers and projects. It continued to grow its Collections, manage its holdings and make them available to the public and staff for enjoyment and research. This progress could not be accomplished without the support and efforts of its dedicated team of volunteers.

Accomplishments

■ Added 766 items to the online catalog.

■ Mended and conserved 134 items.

■ Added 243 books to the Collections.

■ Received donations of glass plates, books, periodicals, pamphlets and ephemera.

■ Received donations of $1,600.

■ Forwarded additional negatives from the Lincoln Collection for digitization.

■ Digitized and published online the Gleason Collection.

■ Rehoused, inventoried, digitized and published online the following: □ Flower Club Project □ Plan Inventory □ Historic Member Albums

■ Updated and published online, research aids for the following: □ Society Portraits □ Manuscript and Reports □ Honorary Medals

■ Published online □ Memoir of Elizabeth Clapp Cheney

□ Paper on the New England Wildflower Society

Ongoing Projects

■ Inventory and create research aids for the Biography and Garden vertical files.

■ The Historical Correspondence Project.

■ Rehouse and inventory recently acquired plans.

■ Inventory of the Society’s Archives.

■ Review of Library assets to accommodate new acquisitions.

Postcard from a Sao Paulo, Brazil flower market (1938) sent by M.L. Stafford, American Consul in Brazil

SPOTLIGHTS

Manor House

In May, MHS secured Green Environmental to complete a hazardous materials assessment of the Manor House. The survey, conducted over the course of a week, had a team collect hundreds of samples throughout a variety of surfaces in every room of the house. This comprehensive assessment documented many of the known substances, namely lead and asbestos, that will need to be addressed in stabilizing and later refurbishing the Manor House.

This amazing and elegant historic building has unfortunately been in a state of neglect and disrepair since the 1980’s (prior to MHS’s occupation of the Garden) and its restoration to use would be a $25 million plus project. Over the past year MHS has worked hard to build political interest in this Commonwealth-owned asset. We are delighted that with the support of our local Senators we had success in raising funds for a 2023 project to halt the building’s rapid deterioration. Our short term aim is to remove hazardous materials that prevent critical maintenance from being carried out. Our ability to actually restore the building, given its scale, will depend entirely upon the strength of community feeling regarding the historic house, ultimately expressed in our ability to fundraise for these projects.

At the end of July, a series of television production scouts descended upon MHS with interest in learning more about filming in our greenhouses, once onsite, their gaze shifted to the Manor House. They entered and found themselves as enamored with the space as we are. After several visits with their producers, directors, and set dressers, they became intent on filming onsite, creating a plan to address the concerns of town and state inspectors. With hours to spare at the end of the fiscal year, we inked a deal which would provide for a series of Manor House upgrades funded by the production as well as a rental fee for its use. Cleaning, painting, electrical work, carpentry, landscaping, as well as two days of filming, will commence in the first quarter of FY23.

Concurrent with the end of the fiscal year, MHS hired a painting contractor to begin painting the Manor House’s Italianate façade. Work consisted of preparation, priming, and painting of eight large windows, 5 attic dormer windows, 5 sets of patio doors, and an extensive refresh on the soffit and fascia. This work is the visible start of the Manor House’s stabilization plan.

Side view of the Manor House, showing the repainted windows and cleaned columns on the right side, facing the Italianate Garden, and the ongoing state of the windows and marble on the left side.

Olmsted Asian Garden

While it still has a long way to go, the Olmsted Asian Garden has seen more forward progress towards rehabilitation over the past year than at any other point in the preceding seventy. Permanent staff – often joined by interns and volunteers – have been busy cutting down stands of invasive plants, stabilizing cleared land with grass seed, uncovering the original flagstone path which runs through the whole garden, and poring over original design documents to gain a full understanding of the area. In small but steady increments, the garden is improving.

Summer interns from Wellesley College practicing invasive species management in the Olmsted Asian Garden.

Massachusetts Horticultural Society

James Hearsum

President and Executive Director

Susan Bradford Garden Events Manager

Zee Camp

Membership Associate Anne Cody Garden Events Manager

Meghan Connolly Marketing Specialist

Karen Daubmann* Director of Garden and Programs

Lindsay Dias Events Department Associate

Allison Dush

Director of Education & Guest Experience

STAFF

Carrie Finkelstein* Garden Educator

Erin Fogarty* Horticulturist - Conservation & Historic Gardens

Mary Ann Janjigian Gatehouse Admissions Staff

Jen Jones

Controller

Edward Lanoue III* Facilities Assistant and Custodian

Elaine Lawrence Director of Development

James Marlowe* Horticulturist

Miriam Miranda Staff Accountant

Maureen O’Brien

Library & Archives Manager

Fred Oppermann Facilities Assistant

Melissa Pace Garden Educator

Mattias Pavlina* Admissions Associate

Eric Salhaney Admissions Associate

Kayleigh Tosches

Director of Events

Rose Yelinalch* Garden Events Manager

*Joined the MHS team in FY22

TRUSTEES FRIENDS COUNCIL

Finley Perry, Chair of the Board

Gretel Anspach, Vice Chair

Dan Daly

James Hearsum, President and Executive Director, ex officio

Graham Luce

Lynne MacDowell

Suzanne McCance

Wayne Mezitt

Barbara Millen

Susan S. Mooney

Kenneth Peters

Darrol Roberts

George Schnee

Bob Smith

Carol Spinelli

Helen R. Strieder

Thaddeus Thompson

Carrie Waterman

David Barnett

Bethany Berk

Stephanie Chlan

Abby R. Coffin

Christine Duminuco

Beth Gray-Nix

Richard Hohmann

Maureen M. Horn

Francis W. Hunnewell

Penni Jenkins

Heidi Kost-Gross

Annette Lee

Jeanne Leszczynski

Suzanne Mahler

Bob Marzilli

Marisa McCoy

Julia B. O’Brien

Melanie Perillo

Holly Perry

Betsy Ridge Madsen

Art Scarpa

Connie Smith

Karin Stanley

Paul M. Steen

Suzanne Thatcher

Eliot A. Wadsworth

Caroline H.B. Whitney

MISSION

Massachusetts Horticultural Society is dedicated to encouraging the science and practice of horticulture and to developing the public’s enjoyment, appreciation, and understanding of plants and the environment.

ABOUT US

Massachusetts Horticultural Society seeks to help people change their lives and communities for the better through growing plants together. MHS disseminates information on horticulture and related sciences through its Library, educational programming, exhibitions and community outreach initiatives. Through these, MHS seeks to engage guests with the importance of plants, gardens and natural landscapes in their lives and help them to become active growers and gardeners themselves. As America’s first established horticultural society, MHS has been practicing horticulture ‘for the public good’ since 1829.

Massachusetts Horticultural Society

The Garden at Elm Bank 900 Washington Street Wellesley, MA 02482 www.masshort.org