Published: November 02, 2009 12:30 am         

Arboretum showing off its 17 years of growth

TERRE HAUTE — A labor of love almost 20 years in the growing will be on display this weekend, as gardeners from across the Midwest visit the Clark-Landsbaum Deming Park Holly Arboretum.

Bill Hiatt, president of the Friends of the Arboretum, said he’s attended chapter meetings of the Holly Society of America such as the one scheduled for this weekend in Terre Haute. “And I think this will be a good one, too,” the master gardener said, noting that he has between 35 and 40 holly bushes of his own at his home in Staunton.

Marilyn Clark, co-founder of the local group, recalled the seeds being planted when she and her late husband, Bill, were a young married couple right out of college.

“We were really young. We had just graduated from college,” she said, describing their first house as seeming somewhat plain. The two went to a nursery armed with no gardening experience, and immediately fell in love with what they later learned was a holly bush. “There are many colors of berries,” she explained Sunday afternoon, describing how the plant remains green in the winter, with blue, yellow, red or white berries adorning it.

The couple grew to love gardening, she said, taking classes together through the Purdue University Extension service as well as at local high schools. But “holly was our first love. That’s the plant we loved the most,” she said, recalling how the couple soon had between 50 and 60 plants at their home.

The idea for a local arboretum began with the couple in 1990 and was embraced by Mayor Pete Chalos who, along with other city officials, consented to having it placed inside Deming Park, she said. In 1997, the Friends of the Arboretum was established to care operate it.

“This is a really unusual thing,” she said, noting that most arboretums are heavily endowed and run by full-time boards. The display at Deming Park is one of only 13 of its kind in America and 25 in the world, she said. And of those, it’s the only one in a public park. “We’re the only one that’s involved with a city and consequently it’s the only one that’s free of charge. Any time the parks are open you can go in.”

In 2000, Friends of the Arboretum was named as a beneficiary in the will of local businessman Morris Landsbaum, the interest from which goes toward its upkeep.

Today, more than 435 types of hollies are represented at the entrance to Deming Park and more than 150 hollies are maintained at a tree farm operated in conjunction with Indiana State University. The group also facilitates a Young Friends of the Arboretum group with local school students, Clark said, noting their desire to keep the display up through future generations.

“It’s been a real labor of love,” she said.

Holly fans from across the Midwest will attend the Great Rivers Chapter of the Holly Society of America meeting this weekend, both Clark and Hiatt said.

Clark said she’s excited to showcase the world-class arboretum, and knows her husband, who died last year, would also approve. “I just think of him as looking down on our arboretum,” she said.

Brian Boyce can be reached at 812-231-4253 or brian.boyce@tribstar.com.