Providence City News: Mary Ellen Flanagan, RWP Botanical Center

From the City News interview series...

This week, City News had the pleasure of taking a first look behind the scenes of the soon-to-be-unveiled Roger Williams Park Botanical Center. Taking us on a tour of the new facility was Mary Ellen Flanagan, a six-year city parks landscape designer, who co-masterminded the revitalization of this 40-year old local attraction.

Surrounded by glorious palm trees, a spectacular Moon Gate Wall, and the beginnings of what will be a Mediterranean water feature, the Botanical Center includes two new greenhouses towering at 6,000 square-foot each and in the future will greet visitors with 6 acres of outdoor gardens. Two old greenhouses, which are approximately 4,500 square-foot each, will be home to outdoor classroom and lecture spaces, as well as exhibit spaces for plant enthusiasts from all over the City and State.

Mary Ellen takes us through the spectacular results of this perfectly manageable, perfectly scaled center for all things green and grounded.


In your opinion, how does the new Botanical Center at Roger Williams Park benefit our City’s neighbors and greater public? What new features will it have that the old one didn’t?

This is definitely a great project for the City of Providence, a perfect scale, very manageable, and it’s paid for. For the public, it’s big enough to have that ‘Wow!’ factor, but it’s not too large that it becomes a burden for the city and the parks department to run. Having another great attraction for visitors, in addition to the zoo (and other amenities at Roger Williams Park), I think will be welcomed by the plant enthusiasts who come back to learn something totally different every time, by the school children and their teachers who stop by throughout the year for educational field trips, and by our many partnering plant and garden groups who will have a place where they can meet and teach the public about what they’re so passionate about.

It also provides an education component that we’ve been looking for. We’ve always had a number of school groups that have walked through the greenhouse, and now, we will have an opportunity to conduct more educational programs at the new Botanical Center. Schoolteachers were looking for this, too. And now it’s really formalized – the programs for schools as well as for the general public. I think that in and of itself is a wonderful opportunity for teachers.

What role did you play in designing the new Botanical Center? Describe the thought process behind the design.

I worked with the Parks Department team – Fred Holman, who is a landscape architect, primarily did the exterior, overall site. We also worked with John Izzo, the engineer, and Jim Shepard, the greenhouse manager. Of course, Alix Ogden, the Parks Superintendent, and Bob McMahon, the deputy. We all worked on the overall design of the new Center. One of the important things we discussed as we planned out the space was the flexibility of it all. We wanted the ability to move plants around for seasonal exhibits, as well as for our partnering plant groups to display their shows in on a rotating basis. There will be certain features, like our collection of carnivorous plants and our orchids that will be permanent fixtures in the display room. In the end, there will be thousands of plants displayed in the Botanical Center.

I was responsible for the interior design, which includes the Moon Gate Wall that is sure to be a showstopper for visitors to take photographs in and send to friends as a memento of their time in Rhode Island. There’s also the Linear Pool, which is flanked by a Mediterranean-style water feature. And again, I helped in the overall concept of the Center, as we debated over constant color choices. In fact, they call me the Color Queen around here!

How did you decide which plants to use?

When I was choosing plants for the new greenhouses, I was thinking about the schoolchildren of Providence – in terms of what they can or will be able to relate to when they visit. So I decided to use different kinds of fruit trees like citrus, bananas, there’s a coffee tree out back, pomegranate, and fig trees. Of course, there are our palm trees in the Conservatory, too. And I asked myself then, what about these palms can the children relate to? So, we have some with very good names like – the fishtail palm, and the fox tail palm, and the old man palm. So, that’s what I thought about as we were designing this environment.

Were you able to keep any of the plants from the old facility?

Keep in mind that the original green house was built in the 1960s, and yes, in fact, we have a 40-year old cactus that was replanted in the new greenhouse from the old greenhouse. About sixty percent of the plants in the new center are new but the rest of them are the bunch we rescued and replanted from the old greenhouse.

And what’s your favorite plant?

Oh god, do you have all day?! I think … Fragrant plants – nothing is better to me than fragrant plants. The Osmanthus fragrance fills the greenhouse with this citrus-like perfume smell. And I placed it right by the door to greet visitors.

Tell us about those groups who come and volunteer, or have been a part of this effort.

Our partner groups are so instrumental in shaping how this Center has evolved. They helped us understand what their needs were – both in educating the public and showcasing their plants. So they communicated to us their logistical needs for the space, and we took into consideration all the shows that they do, and adequate classroom space – both indoor and out – so that people can come in and study these specialty plants. And there are tons of people that attend these shows and they are all extremely excited about this project. Groups like the Rhode Island Orchid Society, the Rhode Island Carnivorous Plant Society, the Rose Society – which is the institute that has been taking care of the Park’s Victorian Rose Garden off Elmwood Avenue, the Rhode Island Wild Plant Society, the Rhode Island Nurserymen & Landscape Association - a group that will be involved in helping plant the outdoor gardens of the Center, the Hosta Society, the Bonsai Society, the Federation of Garden Clubs, and the Master Gardeners of the URI Cooperative Extension program.

We are partners with the URI Co-op Extension program and through this partnership, we have hired a Volunteer & Education Coordinator to facilitate the programs and the volunteers for the Center. This partnership will also allow us to bring a more scientific bent to the programs we will do, whereby we can bring in different experts throughout the year to conduct lectures and such for our visitors.

Is there anything else about the new center that people should know about?

In addition to the education and exhibit components of the Center, this space has also been designed to allow for groups to rent the facility, or parts of it for special events, weddings, etc. So, it’s rentable space that will bring in revenue to the City. The Conservatory will be available to rent in the near future, and we will also be having an event tent towards the entrance of the outside garden. The Center also has 6 new restroom facilities and a catering area for the events. There’s a gazebo adjacent to the event tent that is facing the lake on the water that could surely be used for a wedding ceremony. I think that’s going to be very popular.

We do have a Parks Department Event Coordinator who currently manages the rental of the casino and this person will also help coordinate events that may happen here at the Botanical Center. In fact, people are starting to book their events now.