The North American Rock Garden Society (NARGS) is a society founded to promote rock gardening in North America. Specifically, it encourages and promotes: [1]
The society has 40 chapters across the United States and Canada. [2] [3]
After organizing meetings in 1933, the society was founded on March 21, 1934, during a New York City gathering as the American Rock Garden Society. Organizing members included Dorothy Hansell, editor of the Gardener's Chronicle of America, Martha Houghton, Florens DeBevoise, Thomas H. Everett, horticulturalist at The New York Botanical Garden, and Montague Free, head gardener at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. [4] The first members chose the American alpine plant shooting star, Dodecatheon, as the society's symbol. [5]
The society has run an annual seed exchange since 1936. [6] [7]
John Bartram was an American botanist, horticulturist, and explorer, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for most of his career. Swedish botanist and taxonomist Carl Linnaeus said he was the "greatest natural botanist in the world." Bartram corresponded with and shared North American plants and seeds with a variety of scientists in England and Europe.
The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) is a botanical garden at Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York City. Established in 1891, it is located on a 250-acre (100 ha) site that contains a landscape with over one million living plants; the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, a greenhouse containing several habitats; and the LuEsther T. Mertz Library, which contains one of the world's largest collections of botany-related texts. As of 2016, over a million people visit the New York Botanical Garden annually.
An alpine garden is a domestic or botanical garden, or more often a part of a larger garden, specializing in the collection and cultivation of alpine plants growing naturally at high altitudes around the world, such as in the Caucasus, Pyrenees, Rocky Mountains, Alps, Himalayas and Andes. It is one of the most common types of rock garden.
Nathaniel Lord Britton was an American botanist and taxonomist who co-founded the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, New York.
Graham Stuart Thomas, was an English horticulturist, who is likely best known for his work with garden roses, his restoration and stewardship of over 100 National Trust gardens and for writing 19 books on gardening, many of which remain classics today. However, as he states in the Preface to his outstanding book, The Rock Garden and its Plants: From Grotto to Alpine House, "My earliest enthusiasms in gardening were for....alpines." p8
A plantsman is an enthusiastic and knowledgeable gardener, nurseryman or nurserywoman. "Plantsman" can refer to a male or female person, though the terms plantswoman, or even plantsperson, are sometimes used. The word is sometimes said to be synonymous with "botanist" or "horticulturist", but that would indicate a professional involvement, whereas "plantsman" reflects an attitude to plants. A horticulturist may be a plantsman, but a plantsman is not necessarily a horticulturist.
Berry Botanic Garden was a botanical garden in southwest Portland, Oregon, in the United States. In addition to large collections of alpine plants, rhododendrons, primulas, and lilies, it was known for its plant-conservation program and its large seed bank that protects rare or endangered plants of the Pacific Northwest. The seed bank, formally established in 1983, was thought to be the first in the U.S. that was devoted entirely to preserving rare native plants.
Reginald John Farrer, was a traveller and plant collector. He published a number of books, although is best known for My Rock Garden. He travelled to Asia in search of a variety of plants, many of which he brought back to England and planted near his home village of Clapham, North Yorkshire.
The Botanical Society of America (BSA) represents professional and amateur botanists, researchers, educators and students in over 80 countries of the world. It functions as a United States nonprofit 501(c)(3) membership society.
Torrey Botanical Society was started in the 1860s by colleagues of John Torrey. It is the oldest botanical society in the Americas. The Society promotes the exploration and study of plant life, with particular focus on the flora of the regions surrounding New York City. Members of the group including Nathaniel Lord Britton and his wife Elizabeth Gertrude Britton founded the New York Botanical Garden.
Elizabeth Gertrude Britton was an American botanist, bryologist, and educator. She and her husband, Nathaniel Lord Britton, played a significant role in the fundraising and creation of the New York Botanical Garden. She was a co-founder of the precursor body to the American Bryological and Lichenological Society. She was an activist for the protection of wildflowers, inspiring local chapter activities and the passage of legislation. Elizabeth Britton made major contributions to the literature of mosses, publishing 170 papers in that field.
The Alpine Garden Society headquarters are at Pershore, Worcestershire. It is an "International Society for the cultivation, conservation and exploration of alpine and rock garden plants, small hardy herbaceous plants, hardy and half-hardy bulbs, hardy ferns and small shrubs".
Roy Watling, PhD., DSc, FRSE, F.I.Biol., C.Biol., FLS is a Scottish mycologist who has made significant contributions to the study of fungi both in the identification of new species and correct taxonomic placement, as well as in fungal ecology.
Grace E. "Betty" Lotowycz was an American botanist, a pioneering woman alpinist, and Women Airforce Service Pilot in World War II.
The Botanical Garden St. Gallen is located in Stephanshornstrasse 4, Neudorf, St. Gallen. It features 8000 labeled plants from all over the world in its open-air displays and several greenhouses. The park and the greenhouses are accessible free of charge during opening hours.
The Wild Flower Preservation Society of America is a defunct American non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation of native plants.
Herbert R. Schaal is an American landscape architect, educator, and firm leader notable for the broad range and diversity of his projects, including regional studies, national parks, corporate and university campuses, site planning, botanical gardens, downtowns, highways, cemeteries, and public and private gardens. Schaal is one of the first landscape architects to design children's gardens, beginning in the 1990s with Gateway Elementary, Gateway Middle, and Gateway Michael Elementary school grounds in St. Louis, Missouri, the Hershey Children's Garden at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens, and Red Butte Garden and Arboretum.
The Scottish Rock Garden Club (SRGC) was founded in Edinburgh in 1933 to promote the cultivation of alpine and rock garden plants by Dorothy Renton, Roland Edgar Cooper and others. The SRGC has meetings, conferences and talks, it publishes a journal and it organises seed exchanges.
Verna E. Pratt was an American botanist, gardening expert, and author. She was considered an expert on Alaska native plants and wildflowers and produced several field guides on the topic. Pratt is also credited for popularizing the knowledge of Alaska plants among gardeners and recreationalists.
Rainer W. Bussmann is a German botanist and vegetation ecologist, specializing in ethnobotany and ethnobiology, wild food plants, wild crop relatives, climate change, gastronomic botany and preservation of traditional knowledge in the Andes, the Caucasus and the Himalayas. He has worked at the University of Bayreuth, University of Hawaii, University of Texas, the Missouri Botanical Garden, Ilia State University and the State Museum of Natural History Karlsruhe; he has founded several international non-governmental organizations, including Nature and Culture International, Saving Knowledge, and Ethnomont.