| Botanical Garden Grant: Jean Iseli Memorial |
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Jean Iseli Memorial Grant
The American Conifer Society annually awards a $4,000 grant to a public garden, arboretum or horticultural institution that emphasizes the development, conservation or propagation of conifers, with an emphasis on dwarf or unusual varieties. Jean Iseli was an American Conifer Society founder and conifer propagator. This grant was established in 1986 to honor his name and memory. Submission Deadline: December 1, 2025
Requirements: A successful application should contain the following:
Note: Not more than 20% of grant money is to be allocated to labor/staff time. Example of a winning application.
Information on Jean Iseli Award Winners: 2025 The Mary May Binney Wakefield Arboretum is so honored to receive the 2025 Jean Iseli Memorial Grant from the American Conifer Society to continue expanding our conifer collection. As a Reference Garden for the American Conifer Society, we must share our knowledge about conifers and offer our visitors opportunities to see the many variations of these amazing plants. Because of Iseli Nursery's generous offer to match this grant with plant material, we are assembling an incredible list of new plants to be installed in the garden in the spring of 2025. We are also working toward becoming a Level lll Certified Arboretum. In order to attain this certification, we need to have 500 species, varieties or cultivars of trees or woody plants in the collection. With this grant we can attain that goal. This winter The Mary May Binney Wakefield Arboretum is installing a 24-acre deer fence to protect the gardens from the heavy deer pressure in the New England area. Once the fence is installed new gardens will be developed throughout the landscape. These gardens will be greatly improved by additions from Iseli. 2024 Allen Centennial Garden is thrilled to be named the recipient of the 2024 Jean Iseli Memorial Grant because it will provide us with a chance to improve two areas of our garden with the addition of less common dwarf conifers. These plants will allow us to renew our Carson Conifer Garden with plants that are more appropriately sized for the small space and ideal for use in home landscapes. This improved display will be used to teach horticulture students and the public about these plants. We're especially excited about including our student interns in the process of installing the new trees this spring. Additional conifers will be included in a new planting along a hillside in our garden, where they will replace large white pine trees, Pinus strobus, that were recently removed due to Cytospora canker. Because dwarf conifers are less susceptible to this disease, they will provide an excellent demonstration of how to replant the space. As a public botanical garden on the campus of a land grant university, this grant provides us with an exciting opportunity to support our mission and highlight dwarf conifers for our campus and state-wide communities. 1999 Arborist Nick Pettit saw the need for better interpretation of the Bartlett Arboretum’s conifer collection and thus applied for the Iseli Award. After receipt of the award, plant labels and stakes were contracted. Volunteers have helped with the assembly of each label with its stake. As a result of the Iseli Award, over 300 taxa of conifers cultivated at the Bartlett Arboretum are now interpreted with a common name, scientific name and family name. Part of the conifer collection contains a number of witches’ brooms that Dr. Sid Waxman, professor emeritus of horticulture at the University of Connecticut, had grown. He obtained some of them by shooting them out of trees using a shotgun. They include Pinus strobus, Tsuga canadensis and Sciadopitys, among others. 1997 The monies from the grant were used to update the display labels in the conifer collection. While many had display labels, there was a significant number that did not. At least one plant of each taxa in the collection was given a 3-inch by 5-inch engraved label created in-house with a Hermes Vanguard 3400 engraving machine. Each label includes the scientific name, common name and scientific family name. The conifer collection is integrated into the entire arboretum, although significant portions of conifers are located in both the Pinetum and the Dwarf Conifer Collection planting. Currently there are 330 coniferous taxa, including the following genera: Abies, Araucaria, Calocedrus, Cedrus, Cephalotaxus, Chamaecyparis, Cryptomeria, Cunninghamia, X Cupressocyparis, Cupressus, Ginkgo, Glyptostrobus, Juniperus, Larix, Metasequoia, Microbiota, Picea, Pinus, Pseudolarix, Pseudotsuga, Sciadopitys, Sequoia, Sequoiadendron, Taiwania,Taxodium, Taxus, Thuja, Thujopsis,Torreya and Tsuga. The mission of the arboretum is to grow and display the best ornamental plants for the Delaware River Valley for gardeners of average means. Plants are acquired based on this mission. On a regular basis they add new species, cultivars and selections that have ornamental potential and promise. Several genera have been recently curated. The curation process involves evaluating current collections, researching ornamental plants that are missing and procuring new plants. In the last 10 years the process has been completed for Abies, Cryptomeria, Cupressus, Picea and Pinus. The conifer collection greatly supports the arboretum’s educational programs. Many lectures, workshops and seminars have focused on the collection. A self-guided tour/brochure titled “A Cast of Conifers” helps the interested homeowner see some of the best specimen conifers in landscape situations. Future plans include adding to the significant collections, evaluating lesser known coniferous genera and expanding under-represented genera such as Cupressus. The Scott Arboretum is free and open to the public. The gardens are open from dawn to dusk, 365 days of the year, making it one of the most accessible public gardens in the mid-Atlantic region. 1996 The award was used by Rotary Gardens to help develop its juniper collection. Over 40 varieties of Juniperus are now on display at the gardens, the majority of which are situated in the rugged rock garden. Rotary Gardens continues to develop its existing conifer collection with an emphasis on dwarf conifers as space becomes more limited. There are currently over 175 different conifers in the gardens. 1995 The Atlanta Botanical Garden used the Iseli Award to add many conifer cultivars to its collection, including some new introductions to the United States. Twenty new conifers were imported from the Netherlands, including four cultivars of Podocarpus nivalis and several Van Hoey Smith selections. New species from China and some new cultivars of Cryptomeria japonica were also targeted. Some of the conifers were ordered directly from Iseli’s Nursery, bringing the grant full circle. 1994 The Iseli Award provided $500 to The Dawes Arboretum in 1994. Part of this grant was spent on five conifers from Hobbie and Associates, Loudenville, Ohio: blue star singleseed juniper (Juniperus squamata ‘Blue Star’), Iseli fastigiate Colorado blue spruce (Picea pungens ‘Iseli Fastigiate’, seemed appropriate), Baker Colorado blue spruce (Picea pungens ‘Bakeri’), a weeping form of Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) and weeping European larch (Larix decidua ‘Pendula’). The larch did not survive but the others are doing fine. The remainder of the money was spent for materials and manufacturing costs to make 165 Metalphoto labels for conifer specimens. The collection now consists of 3,600 conifers encompassing 883 different taxa. Many of these are located in a 13.7-acre area fittingly called the Conifer Glen. Southwest of the glen are an additional two acres near Dawes Lake that serve as a spill-over for duplicate accessions. In the next few years additions to the glen will include a wheelchair accessible trail to a very pretty overlook, bridges and boardwalk to cross a small stream and an observation/interpretive structure. Visit the Web site for Conifer Reports, www.dawesarb.org. 1993 The University of California-Davis Arboretum was founded in 1936 with the planting of a collection of California native trees, including Jeffrey and foothill pines (Pinus jeffreyi and Pinus sabiniana), incense cedar (Calocedrus decurrens), and coastal redwood (Sequoia sempervirens). Seedlings were donated by the Civilian Conservation Corps. Since that time, conifers have continued to form an important part of the plant collections and support the education and research missions of the arboretum. Most of the conifers in the arboretum were planted in the early
1960s. The collection now includes 131 species and cultivars of conifers
adapted to the local Mediterranean climate, distributed among the
following genera: Abies (8), Callitris (6), Calocedrus (1), Cedrus (4) Cryptomeria (2), Cupressus (19), Cunninghamia (1), Glyptostrobus (1), Juniperus (34), Keteleeria (1), Metasequoia (1), Picea (1), Among the uncommon conifers in the collection are four species of Callitris, the cypress pine native to Australia and Tasmania; a single specimen of Pere David’s pine (Keteleeria davidiana); lacebark pine (Pinus bungeana), a native of northern and central China, whose name reflects the tendency of the bark to flake off to reveal creamy white branches and trunks; Himalayan white pine (Pinus wallichiana), a beautiful soft-textured, graceful tree native to the Himalayas; Tetraclinis articulate, the arar tree and source of sandarac, a hard resin used in industry; and big-cone Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga macrocarpa), a handsome tree with long swaying branches, rarely found in cultivation. The arboretum used the Iseli Award to label the conifer collection. Staff prepared labels using a photoengraving process and mounted them on the trees where possible, using special expansion screws, or on metal stakes. Part of this funding also supported the production of an interpretive sign in the conifer collection. The 18-inch x 24-inch sign was produced with a photographic process, imbedded in fiberglass, and mounted in a custom-fabricated stand. The arboretum is most grateful for the support of the American Conifer Society for these important educational projects. The staff believes the value of a public garden as an educational resource depends as much on interpretation (plant labels, educational signs and exhibits and brochures) as on the strength of the collections. In fact, to the uninformed visitor, interpretive materials are all that distinguish a botanical garden or arboretum from a park. Interpretive displays provide access to the horticultural and botanical ideas that underlie the garden design. They increase awareness and appreciation of the natural world by pointing out the characteristics of a plant or the theme that guides a collection. Effective interpretation can expand the plant palette of gardeners and horticulturist, and educate the public to the impact of our life choices on the environment. Full list of past award recipients: |
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