Abra Lee | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 18 December 1978 Atlanta |
| Alma mater | Auburn University |
| Occupation(s) | Historian; public horticulturalist |
| Awards | 2019-20 Longwood Fellow |
| Website | https://conquerthesoil.com/ |
Abra Lee (born 18 December 1978 [1] ) is an American public horticulturalist, historian and writer, who researches Black garden history and raises awareness of the subject through social media.
Lee graduated from Auburn University with a degree in Ornamental Horticulture. [2] She has worked in a number of horticultural roles, including: with the University of Georgia as a County Extension Agent for Fulton County; [2] [3] as Landscape Manager for Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport; [4] as a horticulturalist at George Bush Intercontinental Airport; [2] as a municipal arborist at City of Atlanta Department of Parks. [5]
As of 2021, Lee worked as a freelance horticultural writer and lecturer, for institutions such as the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Centre, Temple University, Smithsonian Gardens, and others. [6] [7] [4] [8] [9] Her work seeks to break down the barriers that prevent black people participating in horticulture. [10] She does this through researching and highlighting the lives of Black women in horticulture, from antebellum history to the present day. [8] Lee says that the "beautiful thing about Black garden history is that it can't be separated from Black history and it can't be separated from American history". [8] She founded the social media platform Conquer the Soil, which raises horticultural awareness through Black garden history and current events. [11]
Lee was selected a 2019-20 Longwood Gardens Fellow. [12] [11] As part of her fellowship she travelled to Château de Villandry where she researched lesser known histories of the garden, as well as supporting a curatorial project which compared the lives of Ann Coleman Carvallo at Château Villandry and Anne Spencer of Lynchburg. [13] Her first book Conquer the Soil: Black America and the Untold Stories of Our Country's Gardeners, Farmers, and Growers is due to be published in 2022 by Indigo Books. [14] [15] [16]
Achillea millefolium, commonly known as yarrow or common yarrow, is a flowering plant in the family Asteraceae. Other common names include old man's pepper, devil's nettle, sanguinary, milfoil, soldier's woundwort, and thousand seal.
The garden pansy is a type of large-flowered hybrid plant cultivated as a garden flower. It is derived by hybridization from several species in the section Melanium of the genus Viola, particularly V. tricolor, a wildflower of Europe and western Asia known as heartsease. It is sometimes known as V. tricolor var. hortensis, but this scientific name is ambiguous. While V. tricolor var. hortensisGroenland & Rümpler is a synonym of Viola × wittrockiana, V. tricolor var. hortensisDC. refers to a horticultural variety of wild pansy that had been illustrated in Flora Danica in 1777 before the existence of Viola × wittrockiana.
Horticulture is the cultivation of plants in gardens or greenhouses, as opposed to the field-scale production of crops characteristic of agriculture. It includes the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, herbs, sprouts, mushrooms, algae, flowers, seaweeds and non-food crops such as grass and ornamental trees and plants. It also includes plant conservation, landscape restoration, landscape and garden design, construction, and maintenance, and arboriculture, ornamental trees and lawns.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to organic gardening and farming:
Longwood Gardens is a botanical garden that consists of over 1,077 acres of gardens, woodlands, and meadows in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, United States in the Brandywine Creek Valley. It is one of the premier horticultural display gardens in the United States and is open to visitors year-round to enjoy native and exotic plants and horticulture, events and performances, seasonal and themed attractions, as well as educational lectures, courses, and workshops.
William Saunders was a horticulturist, landscape designer and nurseryman. During his long career, Saunders designed the Soldiers National Cemetery at Gettysburg, planned and developed the Washington DC park system, authored hundreds of articles on horticulture and introduced numerous plant species into the United States, significantly impacting the nation's agricultural economy. He was one of the first landscape architects to be employed by the federal government and spent thirty-eight years working for the US Department of Agriculture. He was also one of the founders of the National Grange, or Patrons of Husbandry.
Organic horticulture is the science and art of growing fruits, vegetables, flowers, or ornamental plants by following the essential principles of organic agriculture in soil building and conservation, pest management, and heirloom variety preservation.
Baptisia australis, commonly known as blue wild indigo or blue false indigo, is a flowering plant in the family Fabaceae (legumes). It is a perennial herb native to much of central and eastern North America and is particularly common in the Midwest, but it has also been introduced well beyond its natural range. Naturally it can be found growing wild at the borders of woods, along streams or in open meadows. It often has difficulty seeding itself in its native areas due to parasitic weevils that enter the seed pods, making the number of viable seeds very low. The plant has low toxicity levels for humans.
Vaccinium angustifolium, commonly known as the wild lowbush blueberry, is a species of blueberry native to eastern and central Canada and the northeastern United States, growing as far south as the Great Smoky Mountains and west to the Great Lakes region. Vaccinium angustifolium is the most common species of the commercially used wild blueberries and is considered the "low sweet" berry.
Vaccinium corymbosum, the northern highbush blueberry, is a North American species of blueberry which has become a food crop of significant economic importance. It is native to eastern Canada and the eastern and southern United States, from Ontario east to Nova Scotia and south as far as Florida and eastern Texas. It is also naturalized in other places: Europe, Japan, New Zealand, the Pacific Northwest of North America, etc. Other common names include blue huckleberry, tall huckleberry, swamp huckleberry, high blueberry, and swamp blueberry.
The American elm cultivar Ulmus americana 'Augustine', originally called 'Augustine Ascending', was cloned by Archie M. Augustine of the Augustine Nursery of Bloomington, Illinois, from a nursery seedling planted in 1927 in Normal, Illinois, and found to be columnar in habit.
Baptisia alba, commonly called white wild indigo or white false indigo, is a herbaceous perennial plant in the bean family Fabaceae. It is native in central and eastern North America. The plant is typically 2 to 3 feet tall, but can be taller, with white, pealike flowers.
The Genesee Farmer or Genesee Farmer was a very early periodical founded by Luther Tucker in 1831 in Rochester, New York. It was devoted to agriculture and horticulture as well as the domestic and rural economy.
Tony Avent is an American horticulturist and plantsman. He and wife and business partner, Anita Avent, own Plant Delights Nursery and Juniper Level Botanic Garden in Raleigh, North Carolina. In addition, he is a plant explorer, author and public speaker.
George Carl Ball Jr. is an American seedsman who has served as chairman and CEO of W. Atlee Burpee since 1991.
The Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women was one of the first horticultural schools to be established by and for women in the United States, opening on February 10, 1911. As the second institution to provide women with a practical education in horticulture and landscape architecture, it made possible their entry into a professional field. Although some men were employed in faculty positions, the school's leadership was intentionally female. As of 1919, the board of trustees consisted of twenty-five prominent women citizens. All but the last director of the school were women.
Charles Howard Shinn was a horticulturalist, author, inspector of California Experiment Stations, and forest ranger in California.
Fannie Mahood Heath was an American gardener who discovered methods for growing imported flowers. She created flower and fruit cultivars and corresponded and collaborated with academics. She was a founding member and vice-president of the National Horticultural Society and her garden would attract 100 visitors a week.
Jamila Norman is a first generation American, born in New York to Caribbean parents. She grew up in Queens, New York, then eventually moved, with her family, to Connecticut, and finally to Georgia. Her mother grew up on a family farm in Jamaica, and her father is from Trinidad. She earned a bachelor's degree in Environmental Engineering from the University of Georgia. She is a mother and currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
