American Horticultural Society Trip to Morocco 2023

 

Keith P. Tomlinson, American Gardener Magazine, American Horticultural Society, Spring 2024

The sweeping view from Grand Villa de France hinted at the week to come. Tangier unfolds toward the Mediterranean, the bustling spice market, colonial forts and numerous exquisite gardens beckon. A sense of exploration filled the conversation during our first dinner together, thirteen AHS travelers ready to explore private and public gardens in one of Africa’s most intriguing countries. Date Palms, Birds of Paradise and huge Philodendrons waved in the breeze in the fading sun as the call to prayer rang out at the local mosque. 

Tangier is the gateway for many travelers to Morocco. Steeped in visitors who came and simply stayed. Their homes and gardens tended in the perfect Mediterranean climate flourished. Not just collections of plants, but artifacts, books and art. Among the most fascinating place’s we visited is the home of Italian Writer and Horticulturist Umberto Pasti. Situated on a steep hill above town, the garden features plants from similar climates around the world. Intimate courtyard gardens embrace each building decorated with whale vertebrae and Roman sculptures mixed with traditional Islamic art. 

Later in the day we visited Donabo for lunch, a lovely public garden perched on a high cliff over the Atlantic. A tour with the Director revealed developing collections suited to the inquiring gardener as well as visiting school groups. Donabo embodies the larger vibe in Morocco, a place of hope and progress steeped in a culture unique in the world. 

 

We headed south toward the ancient city of Fez situated among sandstone cliffs outlining a shallow valley. A five-minute walk in narrow passages past laboring donkeys led us to the Riad Fez, an exquisite hotel hidden among the city’s red clay ramparts. The stunning three-story lobby is decorated in impossibly detailed, colorful ceramics. A traditional dinner of Couscous and Lamb was followed by drinks on the rooftop terrace with an expansive view of the city. The next day we visited a busy local garden park as a singing troop entertained delighted children playing among fragrant gardenias and linear fountains. Fez is a center for the arts, Berber carpets, fine leather goods and intricate ceramics of the highest quality abound. 

 

A night in the Capital Rabat allowed for a leisurely dinner and conversation at the beautifully appointed Hassan Palace. Sporting a brand-new skyscraper, Rabat is a city of neatly tended garden parks. Surely among North Africa’s most beautiful cities, it’s a place of celebration and admiration for King Mohammed VI. The next morning, we explored Jardin Exotic just south of town. A forest garden with an impressive aviary, the garden manager and curator provided an intimate tour that tested our various plant identification apps. Both aesthetic and educational, Jardin Exotic fills and important horticultural and botanical niche near the capital city. 

We arrived in Marrakech, perhaps the world’s most famous market city as an enthralling sunset cast an orange glow on snow-capped peaks of the High Atlas. Our final two days featured adventures in the famous Jemaa el-fnaa market, Jardin Majorelle and a visit to the exquisite Le Jardin Secret. Our last evening celebrated the music, wine and antiquity of Marrakech as we marveled at the gardens visited, design inspiration and horticultural treasures of Morocco.  

 

Closing the Busiest Interpretive Season Since Retiring from Full Time Work

Twenty twenty-four was the busiest year for programming since retirement in July of 2020. January included year three of Botanical Garden’s of the World with Smithsonian Associates. This Zoom series has attracted thousands of attendees from around the world. While I’m the founder and principal host, several excellent guest speakers were included. Shortly afterwards the Keynote presentation at the Prince William Wildflower Society required considerable preparation. While content rich it also needed to be consumable for a diverse audience ranging from natural resource professionals, horticulturist and home gardeners. Details of the talk are found on this Blog. A few garden club presentations followed. Brookside Gardens in Wheaton Regional Park hosts the Silver Spring Garden club. This is always an excellent meeting venue with a good turnout and excellent follow-up questions. 

Returning to the Potomac Valley Collection 

Perhaps the central event of spring 2024 was being invited back to work at Meadowlark part time. This was specifically to coordinate new focused work on the native plant collections. During the Pandemic the entire garden suffered a dramatic decline. This was common in public gardens around the country, especially those with a small staff. I didn’t visit much as I found it distressing to see a once remarkable space going without enough care. I was particularly heartbroken that the Potomac Valley native plant collection (PVC) had fallen into complete disrepair. The once uniquely beautiful, biologically diverse space was being overrun by invasive weeds. Dead branches littered the ground the trail faint, as English Ivy, Privet and Japanese Honeysuckle covered delicately created plantings. The development of the PVC was my primary contribution to Meadowlark over more than two decades. Thousands of hours of labor, international recognition, nearly a million dollars in donations, multiple journal articles, even a feature in the New York Times science section seemed wasted. It was painful to see. Yet I understood that botanical garden collections change over time, often reflecting the interest of new staff. But the PVC was a foundational collection designed specifically to diversify Meadowlarks’ mission and appeal by creating a distinct botanical horticulture focus to the garden. It did just that, providing a conservation initiative that the public and donors recognized. 

I was able to recruit several excellent volunteers in March 2024. Many of these folks are Virginia Master Naturalist and prolific native plant gardeners. With this highly skilled crew we set out on extensive weeding and pruning projects. Very little training was needed, just setting priorities. As May dawned, we could see the substantial progress as many previously planted species poked through the warming soil. It didn’t look good enough for public tours yet, but aesthetic and ecological elements of the collection were reemerging. This was wonderfully satisfying for all involved. We also spent some time working around the Lake Lena native wetland. It's important to note the entire garden is looking much better, there are several talented new staff making thoughtful contributions. In early May I had to depart for two months of Volunteering in North Cascades National Park. Along with some additional staff support, the volunteers continued making great progress. I returned on Schedule in August.

Potomac Overlook Nature Center

Work at Potomac Overlook also picked up during the Spring season. I spent time supporting various staff priorities and hosting birthday party nature programs. While working at Potomac Overlook in the 1990s, I generally avoided birthday programming having specialized in high schools, university students, adults and seniors. But nearly thirty years later, I find these programs to be curiously appealing. Around 2015 I began giving children’s tours at Meadowlark on an experimental basis. Instead of delving into content focus topics related to plant biodiversity and conservation, I told stories. Little did I realize just how much I enjoyed these tours. It was a complete turnaround for me as an interpreter. One memorable tour a little girl slipped her hand into mine as we walked along a flower lined trail. That was a first, and it moved me. I was baffled at the newfound attraction after decades of adult work. My frequent collaborator, photographer and retired diplomat Bill Folsom knew exactly what was happening. During a conversation one afternoon, he explained with characteristic certainty that I was now old enough to be a grandfather, thus the opportunity to spend time with children was a predictable outcome. Bill was one of the wisest people I ever had the privilege to work with. I continue to greatly enjoy doing kids birthday parties at Potomac Overlook. 

North Cascades National Park (NOCA)

The trip west included tornado dodging in the mid-West, a stop by Canyon de Chelly, a fascinating visit to Hoover Dam, superb wildflower botanizing in Death Valley and excellent camping at Lake Tahoe. The final leg featured parts of northeastern California I’d never seen including Lassen Volcanic National Park and the snowy slopes of Mt. Shasta’s looming stratovolcano summit. Further north in Oregon I visited with daughter Charlotte and had a great tour of Smith Rocks replete with intricate spires and sawtooth summits. 

 Arriving in North Cascades I jumped immediately into a week of training, meeting new staff and friends from last year. Consistent with the maritime climate, cold, overcast, wet conditions lasted until late May- when the sun came out as if on cue. I was pleased to find the largely female led management team still in place. A group of stellar women committed to public service and conservation in one of the countries most rugged national parks. As expected, the Management staff combined with many seasonal rangers made for a great work environment. Numerous new coworkers brought fascinating backstories and broad experience in NPS parks from the Everglades to the Grand Canyon, Shenandoah and Glacier in addition to several smaller historic sites. My entire time this summer was working in the lovely visitor center at the heart of public service, my favorite duty. 

While nearly forty years old, the NOCA visitor center exhibits are engaging and full of educational content. Like most visitor centers, maps play a central role, nothing more than the raised-relief topographic map anchoring the lobby. Measuring 6x10 feat and inlaid with interactive lights highlighting numerous park features, this map is typical of high quality NPS exhibits. It’s detailed, technically accurate, yet hand painted. This single exhibit might take months to fabricate and cost well over $100,000. It was an absolute privilege to work in this setting. I also spent time at the Pickett Range overlook not far from the visitor center. Clouds often obscure the view, but when it’s clear the range displays magnificent relief with steep snow fields, glaciers and several needle-like peaks made up largely of Cascade Gneiss. The aptly named Mt. Terror has a few alpine climbing routes noted for their exposure and occasionally unstable rock.

To an east coast naturalist, the forests of the Pacific Northwest are legendary and mystical. Towering trees, copious moss and high seasonal rain fall results in a forest of remarkable stature and beauty. Unlike most of the eastern forests many areas are old age or genuine old growth. Thus, huge trees are relatively common. Predictably there are numerous relatives between the eastern and western forests. Many common genera are recognizable but yield different species, presumably denoting ancestral commonality in the preglacial forest of the mid-Tertiary Miocene. In addition, there are the ever-curious East Asian affinities on both the east and west coasts further suggestion intercontinental commonalities in pre-Pleistocene forests. 

The existence of a vast, complex circumboreal Miocene Forest is well known. Macro fossils in particular reveal a forest where ginkgo's, oaks, dawn redwood, tree of heaven, bald cypress, numerous magnolias and tulip poplars mingled. First coined the Arcto-Tertiary (ACT) flora in 1879, this concept seemed to address the remarkable disjunctions of many closely related species. It gained broad acceptance over the next 100 years in the fields of paleobotany and biogeography. However, recent studies utilizing molecular techniques paint a more complex picture of migration and speciation among Eastern North America and East Asia in combination with climatic oscillations. These evolving relationships provide a fascinating backdrop to the floristic complexity of both regions and their closely allied species. 

While the forests of the Pacific Northwest are remarkable in stature and composition, the forests of the east and southeast are somewhat more complex and species rich. Both can trace their composition to ancient floral assemblages regardless of intricacies in composition and distribution. Thus, a visit to ecoregions in either biome reveal a remarkable past and fascinating present. Regardless of modern impacts, these forests will continue to evolve, diversify and migrate on time scales beyond human agency. 

After an uncharacteristically fast trip back east, I started work again at Meadowlark and Potomac Overlook in addition to volunteering in the Sculpture Garden at the National Gallery of Art and the World War II Memorial. The Smithsonian Associates Shenandoah National Park program took place on October 19th and 20th. Fall colors were peaking and clear weather made for a wonderful weekend. The sold-out trip comprised a group of able hikers. Our initial hike followed several trails around Big Meadows including a stop at the excellent visitor center. The Saturday evening lecture on the park’s natural history went well, generating many insightful questions. Day two we tackled the Dark Hollow Falls trail, at times steep and circuitous, the fall colors were particularly brilliant. I found the hike a bit arduous, as did several participants. As fall faded, I assisted with a management transition in the Merrifield Garden Centers tropical greenhouse. It was a pleasure to work with several talented staff in this beautiful commercial space during robust holiday visitation. Ever since living in Florida and Hawaii in addition to traveling in many equatorial forest regions, tropical plants have held particular fascination for me.