Staff believe new director will be ‘unifying force’ for MSU Horticulture Gardens

When Mason McNair was 6 years old, his mother had to entice him into a trip to Juniper Level Botanic Garden in Raleigh, North Carolina, with the promise of ice cream.

“But by the time she was done, I didn’t want to leave because I was having so much fun playing in the gardens,” McNair said.

He recalled a “magical” experience of exploring the winding paths at Juniper Level, navigating through elephant ear leaves bigger than he was and art installations made from found objects. 

Since then, he has built a career that keeps him as close to gardens as possible. As an undergraduate horticulture major at North Carolina State University, his first internship was at Juniper Level’s Plant Delights Nursery under Tony Avent, its founder. He also participated in a horticulture internship at Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina, before going on to work at the agricultural technology firm Syngenta. In 2023, he earned a doctorate in plant taxonomy from the University of Georgia.

Earlier this month, he moved to Michigan to become the new director and curator of Michigan State University’s Horticulture Gardens, which includes its beloved Michigan 4-H Children’s Garden. His term begins Thursday (Aug. 15).

McNair’s hiring comes in the wake of two major retirements in 2022: Norm Lownds, curator of the children’s garden since 1997, and Kristin Getter, director of the Horticulture Gardens since 2018.

Jessica Wright, the children’s garden’s education coordinator, has also been serving as its interim director and curator since Lownds retired. She’s excited about what McNair will bring to the revamped role.

Throughout the gardens’ 31-year history, the curator of the children’s garden and director of the Horticulture Gardens have been separate jobs, she said. McNair is the first faculty member hired specifically to oversee the gardens as a whole. His role will include strategic planning as well as fundraising.

Wright said she looks forward to McNair bringing “cohesiveness” to the gardens and seeing him develop “a vision for the whole gardens.”

Day to day, Wright also looks forward to having “someone to bounce ideas off” again.

“I’m excited for his perspective,” she said. “I’ve been here for 20 years, and sometimes I think I just get stuck in my ways.”

MSU’s Horticulture Gardens originated in the 1880s as a series of test plots for horticultural crops on the north side of campus. A century later, in the late 1980s, work began on the current iteration of the gardens on the south side of campus, outside the then-new Plant and Soil Sciences Building. They were dedicated in 1993. Today, they span 14 acres and feature several named gardens, each with its own mission, including the colorful Judith Delapa Perennial Garden, which greets visitors near the entrance pavilion, and the Amien and Florence Carter Trial Garden, which assesses how plants perform in mid-Michigan growing conditions.

Botanical gardens like MSU’s Beal generally offer intentionally curated collections for scientific purposes. Horticultural gardens tend to focus on the factors that determine “why plants grow the way they do,” often with an eye toward the needs of gardeners or the agricultural industry, according to assistant Professor of horticulture Courtney Hollender.

“I think Mason’s going to bring a lot of energy and ideas to the gardens,” Hollender said. In particular, she thinks McNair’s experience using 3D printing for STEM outreach will “inspire the kids” who participate in the children’s garden’s programming.

The idea for the 4-H Children’s Garden stemmed from the late Jane Taylor. While working as director of annual gift programs for the Michigan 4-H Foundation, Taylor raised funds for an educational play space that would be created “by kids, for kids,” according to Wright.

The Michigan 4-H Foundation is a youth development organization that offers hands-on agricultural opportunities for kids. It provides funding for the children’s garden as well as McNair’s directorial position.

McNair also brings with him a 19-month-old beta tester for the children’s garden: his son, Miles.

“I want it to be a place where he’s excited to hang out,” McNair said.

The children’s garden, which draws school groups from across the state, is a successful outreach arm of the university. Last year, Wright said, she led 10,000 children through its programs. But both McNair and Wright would like to see deeper connections between the gardens and the plant science happening across campus — not just in horticulture but also botany, entomology and soil science. Together, the two plan to encourage more use of the gardens in research and teaching.

Having spent most of his life in the southeastern United States, McNair is intimately familiar with its flora. He’s looking forward to the challenge of having new plants to identify in Michigan.

“In the southeast, I can ID almost every plant, at least to its family,” he said. “But when I get to Michigan, I’m not going to know everything immediately.”

While he prefers to “spot ID” plants from memory, he’s no Luddite: A major focus of his research is on what technology, including plant identification apps and 3D printing, has to offer plant science education. He’ll continue this exploration in his Plants X Tech Lab at MSU.

As he settles into his role, McNair said he plans to observe and learn before making big changes to programming.

“I’m hoping to come in and learn what they’ve been doing, what’s worked and what hasn’t,” he said.

These days, McNair doesn’t need to be lured to a garden with ice cream.

But he does cite the Pizza Garden, a circular herb garden with a slice-shaped wedge cut out of it, populated by the plants needed to make pizza, as one of his favorite elements in the children’s garden.

“All those plants have different growing habits,” he said. “Wheat is a grass, while oregano is very sprawling ground cover.”

The pizza becomes “a metaphor for biodiversity,” he said — and a creative way to teach kids about their food sources.

It’s an easy element to miss, he noted, if one doesn’t slow down to observe.

McNair encourages people to look at plants slowly and closely. But he’s also looking for opportunities to make operations more efficient. With his startup funds, he plans to implement multiple FarmBots — an automated gardening system that includes planting, watering, weeding and more — in the gardens.

“I’m a big fan of working smarter, not harder,” he said.