Renovating Wilson Botanical Garden in Costa Rica

[Dave-Vero]

This, from the latest email from the Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS):

Wilson Botanical Garden Welcomes New Horticulturist

In mid-2014, the Wilson Botantical Garden gained a new volunteer horticulturist, Dave Janas. Dave is a New York Botanical Garden-trained horticulturist with a broad background in tropical horticulture, starting with the rainforest greenhouses of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory at NYBG. After several years of growing tropical plants under a glass dome in a decidedly non-tropical location, he moved to St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands where he started his own nursery business and landscaping crew. There he developed an abiding passion for native plants, which was a lot less lucrative than planting Bougainvillea and Ixora everywhere, so he took a brief detour to the frozen northlands for just long enough to obtain a Master of Science degree in Conservation Biology from Antioch University New England. Determined to spend as little time away from the tropics as possible, he moved to Hawaii in order to complete his thesis requirements while working for the US Forest Service growing rare and endangered native plants for a large-scale restoration experiment. Upon completion of his contract with the federal government and desiring to work with a greater diversity of native plants, he moved to Costa Rica to set up at Las Cruces.

Dave has many goals for the Wilson Botanical Garden; some of the most immediate include replenishing the formerly world-renowned palm collection, restoring Roberto Burle-Marx's Bromeliad Hill, and redesigning the Heliconia Garden. In addition to renovating existing gardens, Dave believes it is critical to increase the emphasis on conservation in Costa Rica by using the Garden as a platform from which to promote native plant species that would be desirable in a home or commercial landscape. He sees the Garden as an interface where the Costa Rican forest intersects with the community and where OTS-supported research reaches the public, as well as being a beautiful landscape where one can be transported away from typical daily surroundings. The Garden has the potential to be truly international-tier and Dave sees it as his mission to give it the extra push it needs.

In addition to renovating the Wilson Botanical Garden, Dave will be teaching horticulture classes periodically throughout the year; they will be on a wide variety of topics, the first of which will be: Orchids!

[Mike Evans]

That is good news. I was lucky enough to spend over 2 days at Wilson and still did not see the entire area. The Wilson's were friends with David Fairchild, so they populated their garden with some very interesting palms and tropical plants. This is must see if you are visiting CR. You can stay in dorm type housing in the garden. The rates they charge includes meals, which was fantastic local foods. The garden is located along the Panama border with a nice small town nearby San Vito. Very friendly locals. Hope, Dave Janas has a lot of fun with the gardens.

[Patricia-CR]

Thanks for such great news! It was kind of abandoned when I visited it.

[Brad-Tampa]

Too bad it is out of focus but here is a picture of Bob and Catherine Wilson during the 1974 IPS tour in Columbia.They were wonderful and fascinating people.

Note the Chigua cone between them

[Dave-Vero]

I don't know OTS's finances or priorities, but I expect that serving member universities' researchers and students comes before keeping up the garden, which must attract a reasonable number of visitors.

"Kind of abandoned" is what's happened, at times, to the little Heathcote garden in Ft. Pierce, Florida (with a small but decent palm collection). Even clumping bamboos need attention and asparagus "fern" can make pavement disappear. A couple of years ago, we uncovered a couple of square meters, almost an archaeological dig. Expanding Raphis thickets have gobbled up other palms.

I spent a little time today cleaning up dead leaves and cutting dead stems from a tall Acoelorrhaphe wrightii clump. Such a grooming really improves the clump's appearance, temporarily. With the dead stems gone, it's now easy to get inside the clump, which makes me wonder about plans to set up much better Christmas lighting come December. Perhaps some lights could be placed inside the Acoelorraphe? Such is life at a botanical garden. Here's the clump in August 2014.

I

[Patricia-CR]

I hope so and totally agree with you.