My, How Smith’s
Conservatory Has Grown
The grand reopening of Lyman Conservatory
in May celebrated the completion of a two-year $5 million
renovation project that expanded the public and teaching spaces and provided
access
for persons with disabilities.
Designed by the Boston architectural
firm of Perry Dean Rogers and Partners, the project restored
the century-old conservatory building, added a new exhibition
gallery, expanded the administrative and academic wings and restored the conservatory’s
historic greenhouses.
Despite
extensive renovations, the exterior of Lyman Conservatory
did not change dramatically. Most of the new space is in
an underground addition built
into the hill on the east side of the building (top). Parts
of the interior have been transformed: the newly created
reception area (right) and
an exhibition gallery (left) are at the front of the conservatory
where the old “head house” (potting area) once was. Photos
by Fish/Parham.
The Lyman Conservatory, formerly the Lyman
Plant House, was originally built in 1896 to accommodate
a single teacher and staff person.
The original balloon-style
core glasshouses, dating from 1895, were designed by the internationally acclaimed
firm of Lord and Burnham. Additional buildings were erected through the next
90 years until there were a dozen structures, but none had undergone a thorough
modernization until the renovation began in 2001.
In all, the renovation restored
the structural integrity of the greenhouses and upgraded
the technology for maintaining the conservatory’s remarkable collection
of some 2,500 species of plants from habitats around the world. It also modernized
and brought all the conservatory’s buildings up to state health code
standards while still preserving the historic structures. With modernized facilities,
the
conservatory can expand programming in the academic curriculum as well as its
public outreach. Smith may now assume an even larger role in the academic and
international community of botanic gardens. For more information, visit www.smith.edu/garden.
Whether you want to refer to the Spring
Bulb Show sale as a public yard sale or a clearance, it was
nonetheless a success. By selling pots of bulbs after the Spring Bulb
Show closed,
the Botanic Garden at Smith raised about $1,400 to send to
the Limbe Botanic Garden in Cameroon. The plants offered for sale, most
of which
were hardy bulbs and still blooming, sold for suggested donations
of $1 to $5 a pot.
The Smith donation, and another from the
North Carolina Zoo, went toward several
initiatives of the Limbe Botanic Garden. The Limbe staff is training farmers
to cultivate the bush mango, which can be used as a soup-thickener, and eru,
an indigenous leafy vegetable rich in proteins. The plants hold economic, medicinal,
nutritional, cultural and social importance for the people of Cameroon and Central
Africa. In addition to cultivating eru, the Limbe staff is creating an eru gene
bank -- which will help in conservation, education and research to get high-yielding
varieties for multiplication and distribution to farmers -- to protect eru
from extinction and maintain its natural genetic diversity.
The donations will
also be used to help initiate a fuel wood domestication program to encourage
high-density production of quality firewood to preserve the rich
and fragile biodiversity on Mount Cameroon. --
TPB
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