Lee Brownson: Garden On The Move: Moving the H.B. Wallace Desert Garden
September 15, 2024, Desert Botanical Garden—Dorrance Hall
Lee Brownson
Garden on the Move
Five years to complete the process of digging up, transporting and planting 5,500+ cacti, succulents, bushes and trees.
Grab A Shovel: An Honest Talk About Conservation in the Cactus and Succulent Community
Summary:The Wallace Desert Gardens was a private garden featuring plants from the deserts and arid lands across the globe. It was created by Henry B. Wallace. H.B., as he was called, wanted to create a place to serve as a store house of biodiversity for the kinds of plants that have adapted strategies to survive in some of the harshest environments on Earth.
In 2005, H.B. passed away, leaving behind one of the largest private collections of arid land plants in the country.
The Board of Directors and I decided that the actual garden could not be saved but maybe the plants could be. It was decided that the majority of the plants be gifted to a public botanical garden. In 2014, the Boyce Thompson Arboretum in Superior, Arizona, was chosen as the recipient institution. It took five years to complete the process of digging up, transporting and planting 5,500+ cacti, succulents, bushes and trees.
Now the tens of thousands of people who visit the Boyce Thompson Arboretum each year are able to see, enjoy, and learn more about the fascinating plants Mr. Wallace collected.
When it was decided to undertake this major challenge, we thought it might be useful to document the process. The end result was two videos. The first is a four minute “fund-raising” video explaining the why of the move. The second is an award winning 35 minute video called, 'Garden on the Move', which documents the how. These videos will be shown at the meeting followed by a question and answer session.
Short Bio: Lee Brownson lives in Scottsdale and has been a member of the CACSS for more than twenty years. He is a past president of the CACSS and was program chairman for two years. More relevant to this program is the fact that he was the executive director of the Wallace Desert Gardens in Scottsdale from 2008 through 2019. He also served as a consultant to the board of directors of Boyce Thompson Arboretum in 2020.