Meet Ray Watson, the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory’s new horticultural curator

Since taking on the role as curator at the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory, Ray Watson has been impressed by just how passionate Como’s horticulturists are about the plants in their care. 

“Within my first week here, every staff member I met apologized for gushing and going on about what they’re interested in, whether that’s staghorn ferns, or carnivorous plants, or orchids,” Watson says. “That enthusiasm is why the plants here are so beautiful and well cared for, and I think the passion that people who work here have for plants evokes something in visitors as well.” 

Watson’s own passion for the conservation of living things has been the common thread on a career path that’s taken them from farm work and landscape design, to education and youth engagement, to genomic research and COVID science. “The Marjorie McNeely Conservatory is really fortunate to have found someone with Ray’s unique mix of skills and interests, from field conservation, to curriculum writing, to greenhouse operations,” says Como Friends’ president Jackie Sticha. “Their perspective will definitely help strengthen and grow the plant collections at Como, and how those resources connect visitors to our conservation mission.”

A graduate of Swarthmore College, Watson earned a double major in religious studies and biology, where their research focused on hormones and mating behavior in forked fungus beetles. In graduate school at the University of Virginia, Watson earned a master’s degree in Ecology and Evolution, diving deep into the genetic evolution of domesticated sunflowers. Watson also served as a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley and worked as an educator with the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History’s Youth Engagement through Science program, writing curriculum as well as collecting and managing research populations of teaching specimens.

Moving to Minnesota with their partner, Watson joined the University of Minnesota’s Genomics Center just before the start of the pandemic, going on to lead a team of researchers in developing COVID testing protocols. But a first visit to the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory’s North Garden inspired them to think about returning to plants as the focus of their work. 

“Though I really enjoyed my role in research and development, during the pandemic, I realized that I was more of a public servant than a scientist,” Watson says. “This role really appealed to me because it was a marked shift toward providing that direct service to the public, using the resources that are available here from the city to benefit everyone in the community.”

This winter, get to know a few of Como Zoo’s newest arrivals  

Como long-time volunteers and supporters suggested the names for the two cubs—Maks (pronounced Max) and Marisa, both associated with strength and tenacity. The name Marisa is also a nod to Marisa Paulat, a retired Como cat keeper who was instrumental in the care of large cats during her 43 years at the zoo.

Marisa and Maks

Willow

Walter

Yoshi

Reggiano and Ilsamar

Snow Cone

Moutig

As the 2025 Winter Flower Show at the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory opens this week, many visitors will enjoy their first glimpse of the new accessibility improvements recently made to the Sunken Garden. Knowing that so many eyes would be on the space after its two-month closure, horticulturist Katie Horvath decided to create a floral design scheme that would give visitors a very warm welcome back. 

“Winter can be a time for those cooler, icier colors, which are beautiful, but when I got to thinking about what I like best in winter, it’s about finding those warm, cozy spaces,” says Horvath. “Walking in to find warmth in the middle of winter became my goal for the garden’s design.” 

This is Horvath’s first design for the Sunken Garden, a process she started more than a year ago to guarantee that featured flowers like the primrose would have the time required to start from seed and go through a lengthy cold-weather germination process. She also spent time exploring more tropical color tones than are typical in wintery botanical gardens. “I looked at ways of combining a lot of oranges and yellows and peachy sherbet-type colors, with mixtures of cherry and caramel and a lot of really pretty deep reds.”  

Among the standouts are the hibiscus mahogany splendor, a peachy dalmatian foxglove, and a mix of buttery and dainty chantilly salmon snapdragons, and pilea Moon Valley with its distinctive kiwi- and bronze-colored leaves. Como’s production greenhouse also cultivated the charming sweet pea vines climbing up the trellises installed throughout the garden. 

The other star of the show will likely be the new pedestrian ramps that now lead to the garden, improving access for guests with strollers, walkers, wheelchairs and other mobility challenges. “Change isn’t always easy,” Horvath says about the nearly 100 years of memories contained in Minnesota’s most beautiful room. “But hopefully when people get back into the Sunken Garden they’ll appreciate how amazing the space is, and just how amazing plants are.” 

Thanks to your contributions to Como Friends, Como’s five seasonal flower shows are always free to visitors. The Winter Flower Show is open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. through March 16, 2025.

Making Minnesota’s most beautiful room more accessible for the future

For one of the first times in its century-long history of service,  the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory’s Sunken Garden closed to the public earlier this winter to allow for the construction of two pedestrian ramps that will make the space more accessible to visitors. The brief closure also gave Como the chance to give the wing—a favorite Twin Cities wedding destination—a little extra sparkle. As the new and improved space reopens to the public this season, here’s a look at some of the features that make the Sunken Garden so special to so many.

1). While the flowers come and go in the Sunken Garden, Minnesota’s most beautiful room has very deep roots. Originally opened as the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory’s south wing in 1915, the room was remodeled about a decade later to create the features we recognize today—the long, narrow floral beds, the lengthy reflecting pool, and the exceptional view from above that allows visitors to take it all in. “Sunken gardens were a trend in Europe at the time,” says Paul Knuth, the retired horticulturist who created the room’s rotating flower shows for more than 30 years. “But I think being able to see everything from one spot would have been the real inspiration. That view is easy on the eyes.” 

2).  A beautiful example of the Victorian glasshouse movement, the Conservatory’s listing on the National Register of Historic Places requires renovations to stay within the framework of the building’s original design, including recreating the distinctive marble flooring pattern on the new ramps. With masonry work that’s been kicking up a lot of dust, crews are also planning a deep cleaning of the windows and these Moravian star pendant lights. A traditional shape made popular in Germany in the 1830s, the star pendants were created by German immigrant and St. Paul craftsman Harry Fritsche. According to his grandson, Fritsche made and donated the now iconic lights to the Conservatory “as a gift to the city that welcomed him during difficult times,” and they have been hanging over the Sunken Garden since 1935.

3). “Play Days,” the beloved bronze sculpture at the south end of the Sunken Garden was also removed from the Sunken Garden this winter for repair and renovation. Created by Harriet Frishmuth, an American artist who studied with Auguste Rodin at Paris’s École des Beaux-Arts, the iconic sculpture is actually one of 99 known castings made of the work. In a fun twist of Como coincidence, this piece was donated to St. Paul in the 1960s by senior horticulturist Ariel Dressler’s godparents. “So many people feel a family connection to that room, and so do I, when I’m dusting that statue,” she says. 

4). The Sunken Garden is a flower powerhouse, accounting for more than a third of the plants, plugs and bulbs grown each year in Como’s behind-the-scenes greenhouse. That number may even grow with the removal of the obsolete elevators, which has created more room for flower beds. “That’s something we’re excited about, because it’s a pretty significant new space for planting,” says Dressler.  The spring and summer flower shows alone typically require up to 10,000 bulbs each year, which means that more than a million tulips, hyacinths, daffodils and other varieties have cycled through the Sunken Garden over the last century. “For years, Como Friends has offered the bulbs for sale when we’re finished with them, so it’s fun to run the numbers and imagine all of the decades that Como’s gardens have been making the community more beautiful, too,” says Dressler. 

From polar bear medical procedures, to expert care for the gardens, to preserving and improving Como’s historic campus, your support made it all happen in 2024.

With her 30th birthday just celebrated, Nan is the grand dame of animal ambassadors at Como Zoo, continuing her reign as the oldest polar bear in North America. And thanks to a series of medical tests and procedures made possible this year with your support for Como Friends, this feisty alpha female is still living her best life in Polar Bear Odyssey with roommates Neil and Kulu.

Animal care is a constant at Como Zoo, but planning a full medical assessment for a polar bear is even more demanding, says senior keeper Allison Jungheim.  Last spring, Nan presented with a short list of potential health problems that keepers and veterinarians decided to investigate. “Because we knew we wanted to get as much information as we could during the short time she’d be under anesthesia, we worked really hard to make sure we had every piece in place,” says Jungheim. During the 90-minute  procedure in July, a dental team took a close look at her teeth, a veterinary team excised a mass on the side of her body, and another shaved a portion of her lower body to diagnose the vulvar dermatitis that was bothering her. 

“We were able to get so much done that there was even time to give her a vaccination, and to collect a blood sample for a polar bear thyroid study they’re coordinating at the Oregon Zoo,” says Jungheim, who also serves as the Association of Zoos and Aquariums coordinator for the North American Polar Bear Species Survival Plan.

Providing state-of-the-art veterinary support to animals like Nan is just one of the things your support for Como Friends helped to make possible in 2024. Here’s a look:  

Greening the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory: For more than a century, Como has inspired the public with gorgeous gardens and floral displays, and now we’re helping highlight the beauty of sustainability. Thanks to contributions to Como Friends, horticulturists at the Conservatory have been introducing drought and heat-tolerant perennials and pollinator-friendly plants throughout Como’s campus. Your support also helps to provide the plant materials and professional expertise behind Como’s five seasonal flower shows, ensuring that the Sunken Garden is always Minnesota’s most beautiful room, no matter the season.

All Ages Animal Care: With tiny new arrivals like Amur tiger cubs Marisa and Maks and willowy nyala newborn Walter, Como Zoo’s keepers and veterinary staff had their hands full helping this year’s zooborns get off to a great start. Thanks to Como’s new on-site veterinary team, made possible in part by your support for Como Friends, the campus also had the resources and expertise to provide specialized care to adolescents like Ivy the giraffe and older animals like Mumford the lion, ensuring that Como Zoo’s animal ambassadors get the cutting edge care they need to thrive at every stage of life. 

Connecting with Conservation: Promoting the value of conservation is Como’s mission, and this year, your gifts helped get the message out far and wide. Whether it’s telling a new story about the oak savanna ecosystem in Como Zoo’s bison habitat, or sending our intrepid education specialists to the Galapagos Islands to participate in field-based conservation and to meet tortoises in the wild, your support helps Como to connect with conservation efforts at home and around the world, while offering environmental education curriculum that teaches visitors about the profound connections between animals, plants and people.

Preserving and Maintaining Como’s Historic Campus: From the iconic Palm Dome to the quiet corners of the Charlotte Partridge Ordway Japanese Garden, nearly every part of Como’s campus has a story to tell. In 2024, your contributions advanced maintenance on high-priority projects to preserve both historic and new assets at Como. Your support helped Como move forward on needed maintenance, from pruning tropical trees, to repaving pathways for better accessibility, to updating the venting that keeps Como’s Orchid Room in bloom.

Free Admission for Every Visitor: Como visitors came back in a big way in 2024, and your support made it possible. Now on pace to welcome more than two million visitors by the end of the year, Como’s free admission ensures that everyone in our community has access to the wonders of nature, every day of the year. 

As a Como Friends supporter, you can take credit for all of this and more at Minnesota’s most visited cultural institution. Thank you for helping to make 2024 another year of growth at Como Park Zoo & Conservatory!

Como Friends donors Erin and Matt Wach have made a commitment to investing in the open-door policy that serves nearly 2 million visitors every year

“We were just out of graduate school, unemployed, and coming to Como was like a really great date that we didn’t have to plan for, or worry about,” says Erin. “It was a way to have fun, and feel calm, without facing any financial barriers. I think Como helped us through that time.”

Tell us your own Como story: Did you visit as a kid? What brings you to Como now?

Como Friends supporters often get the chance to take part in sneak peek experiences to learn more about animals and plants. Have you taken advantage of any of those opportunities, and what have you learned in the process?

Many people wait until later in life to make a real financial commitment to the nonprofits they care about. Why have you chosen to make that commitment now as younger people?

What’s your pitch? Why do you think people should support Como Friends on Give to the Max Day?

This year, you can help choose the name of Como Zoo’s new baby nyala, born in September. Vote for your favorite name when you make a Give to the Max Day gift to Como Friends!

Pick your favorite name—Harvey, Stanford, or Walter—and vote by selecting your choice on the donation form. 

Two Como educators traveled to the Galapagos Islands to bring home new lessons for Como’s conservation curriculum

Since 2017, Como Friends’ Conservation Champions program has helped dozens of Como staff members pursue professional passion projects, from tracking snow leopards in Kyrgyzstan, to finding cool ways to cut down on single-use plastics on Como’s campus, to rehabilitating injured penguins on the coast of South Africa. 

While the Conservation Champions program is open to applications from everyone on Como’s campus, it wasn’t until Anne Ahiers and Ashley Verdeck got a nudge from the Education & Conservation Curator, Bekah Hanes, that the pair of education specialists decided it was time to make a pitch of their own. Their plan? To join a special program dedicated to educators and ecology in the Galapagos Islands, and to take over Como’s social media accounts with real-time posts about what they were learning on the way. 

Their adventure started last July, when the pair joined Ecology Project International and met with their group in Quito, Ecuador. Their cohort of fellow educators came from as far away as Australia and Kazakhstan, and quickly bonded over their common love of tortoises, which they encountered on their first day, roaming through the highlands. “Just to see tortoises out in the greenery, in their natural ecosystem was amazing to us,” says Verdeck. “We were all acting like little kids, we were so excited.”

The group got the chance to collect biometric data on the 13 different tortoise species that occupy the Galapagos Islands, including one nearly 100-year-old animal that had never been studied before. As the group toured the volcanic archipelago, they could also see how each species has adapted to its own microhabitat.

“You’ll have tortoises that look very different from one island to another island,” Ahiers explains. “Tortoises that live where it’s very green and rainy look a lot like Como Zoo’s Irwin, who eats plants and grasses on the ground. But tortoises that live in scrubland have a different shape and size, including an aperture that’s a lot wider, so they can reach their heads up and eat cacti.” 

Verdeck and Ahiers got a chance to visit a tortoise breeding center, where they visited the memorial for Lonesome George, the last ever Pinta Island tortoise in the world, who has become a conservation icon for the Galapagos. The team also took part in highland restoration, helping with a conservation project working to manage invasive African snails, and studying their effect on the ecosystem. 

Another day, they hiked to the famed Tortuga Bay, performing a survey on the prevalence of microplastics. “We were walking on a pristine beach, with no trash anywhere, but when you start sifting through it, you find these microplastics that are the size of a needle tip,” says Verdeck. “You start to realize how hard it is to get away from this problem.” 

While moments like this were eye-opening for Ahiers and Verdeck, the pair say it was also inspiring, helping them to create a new Little Explorers curriculum that mimics some of the activities and lessons they learned during their trip. “You want to start kids young, and get them caring about conservation early in life—the earlier the better,” says Verdeck. “If you can teach them not to throw wrappers on the ground, and to put them in the garbage right away, that’s a good place to start.”

As the team posted updates about their travels, they also made strong connections with other educators in their group that have continued even since they returned to Como. “We were the only non-formal educators on the team, and sometimes it can be hard to translate why zoos are here, and what our role is,” says Ahiers. “But we have an important contribution to make, because we’re here to teach people about conservation, about what we can do to keep species safe and thriving, and to protect ecosystems. Conservation Champions really helped us to make those connections.”

Thanks to your support for Como Friends, a new generation is discovering career options in animal care and horticulture

For Como Zoo apprentice Sophia Dady, the trick is building trust with Ruby, the newest bison to live in Como’s historic barn. Over the course of the last year, Dady’s calm demeanor (and hundreds of carrots) have helped her to build a bond with the young bison, teaching her to follow a training target. This new husbandry skill now allows keepers to get a closer look at different parts of Ruby’s body, depending on where the target is positioned. 

While few zoo interns ever get the chance to take on an important long-term project, animal training is all in a day’s work for Dady. A member of St. Paul’s Right Track apprentice program, Dady is one of 9 zookeeping and 4 horticultural apprentices at Como this year, earning 20- to 40-hours-a-week pay while they take on entry-level responsibilities throughout Como Zoo and the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory. 

Though unpaid internships and volunteer conservation roles have often been the career path to jobs in animal care, the Right Track program helps to remove the economic barriers to participation for youth from cost-burdened households. “Right Track is designed to ensure that you don’t have to work without pay, or have multiple side jobs, to take advantage of a career-building opportunity,” says Lianna Sanders, the Como project manager who oversees the Right Track apprentices.

This year, Como has expanded the Right Track program to include horticultural apprentices like Willow Stephens, who recently had the opportunity to collaborate with horticulturist Rylee Werden on the design and installation of the Fall Flower Show. Hands-on experiences like that, and having the time it takes to dive into a potential career is another important part of the program, which also allows young people to attend college during their apprentice tenure. 

Being fully immersed in animal care at Como has allowed Dady to take part in everything from primate training to observing behind-the-scenes veterinary care, while also attending Right Track professional development sessions in resume writing, financial literacy, and more. “Because the zookeepers see you more often, they trust you and allow you to take on your own projects, which is so important,” Dady says. “You’re given a bit more independence to find out what you like to do and what you’re good at, which is important as you’re developing your career.”

The final Flower Show of the year celebrates the warmth of autumn

A long-running design trend in fashion, hair, and homewares, the ombre pattern is now making its horticultural debut in the Sunken Garden, where waves of yellow, gold, pink, and purple chrysanthemums ripple against the room’s reflecting pool.

“The theme we were going for was ‘sunset on the water,’” says Willow Stephens, the Right Track horticultural apprentice who co-designed the show along with Como horticulturist Rylee Werden. “The white mums at the end of the pool represent the bright sun, and then you see the colors around it fade away, yellow to orange, pink to purple.”

And now through November 16, Como’s Fall Flower Show is taking its inspiration from the color palette of Como Zoo’s lions, Mumford and Maji. Sunken Garden flower shows are free to the public, and made possible, in part, by your support for Como Friends. Thank you!

An autumn tradition for more than a century, designing the Fall Flower Show at the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory is a cool project for any young horticulturist to have on their resume. But this season’s display is extra special—it will be the last shot of color in the Sunken Garden before it closes for renovations that will make the historic room more accessible to visitors with strollers, wheelchairs, and other mobility challenges. While it’s under construction, Como’s horticulturists, and an event and display company are planning a poinsettia display for the Visitor Center porch.

“There’s never a great time to close any corner of Como, particularly a garden that visitors love as much as the Sunken Garden,” says Como Campus Director Michelle Furrer. “While we won’t be able to experience the Holiday Flower Show, we are planning a special exhibition, Winter’s Blooming Wonderland, that includes the traditional poinsettias on the Visitor Center Porch.”

That’s why horticulturists came up with a particularly colorful plan for this season’s two-part flower show. Following the sunset theme, which runs through October 27, the second half takes its inspiration from the color palette of Como Zoo’s lions, Mumford and Maji, and will run from November 1 through 16. 

In addition to traditional mums, Werden says visitors will see her favorite plant, the viola “antique shades,” and many other vibrant supporting players. “The cooler temperatures and shorter days do restrict the types of plants that we can select, but we’ve chosen some that give the room a nice fall feel—chard and kale, marigolds, millet, and grasses all look great with these mums.” 

“We’re really excited about having a room that’s more accessible, and that more people can appreciate,” says Werden. “And one thing we really like is that these changes will even create a little more space for garden beds.”

Symbolizing joy, luck, friendship, and rebirth, chrysanthemums have been the centerpiece of the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory’s fall flower shows since 1915. This year’s show highlights the versatility of mums by featuring the same plant side by side—one in the traditional shape, the other pruned back to create a show-stopping central bloom. 

To keep all of these plants healthy, Werden recently released hundreds of lacewings into the Sunken Garden. These tiny but mighty beneficial bugs can help protect chrysanthemums from pests known as “thrips,” and the potentially deadly viruses they carry. The Integrated Pest Management program was funded in 2024 by your support to Como Friends. Thank you!

Each year Nature Walk volunteers engage with an estimated 250,000 visitors, most of them younger children, role modeling the idea that caring about conservation is cool

Wally Hlavac, a conservation biology major at the University of Minnesota, spent his summer traipsing across Madagascar, doing field surveys of the island’s birds, butterflies, and lemurs. He credits his time as a Como Nature Walk volunteer with helping him take the first step. 

Hlavac was a summer camper at Como several years ago when he encountered his first Nature Walk volunteer, one of 50-some teens recruited each spring and summer to help bring Como’s animal and plant collections a little closer to Como’s nearly two million annual visitors. “I think he came in to show us a rabbit, and I decided that was something I really wanted to do, too,” says Hlavac, who applied and was accepted into the selective program when he was in ninth grade. 

Through Nature Walk, teens are provided training on a variety of Como’s conservation themes, from the rainforest and reptiles, to beneficial bugs and plants, that they go on to share with Como visitors at interpretive stations arrayed around Como’s grounds. “It was the first time in my life that I got to teach people about conservation and concepts that I’m really passionate about,” Hlavac says.

The program, which includes professional development training, also pushed him to develop greater confidence and public speaking skills. “I was a really awkward kid, but being able to go to Como and talk to people, and answer their questions was really great for me,” he says. “It motivated me to try hard, and get Como visitors engaged, because those encounters felt really good.” Each year, in fact, Nature Walk volunteers engage with an estimated 250,000 visitors, most of them younger children, role modeling the idea that caring about conservation is cool.

After a pause during the pandemic, Como’s Nature Walk program was back at full power this summer, with a full complement of teen volunteers on campus sharing their insights on the smallest insects and the tallest giraffes. While not every teen will go on to pursue careers in conservation, Hlavac says there’s no doubt the experience helped him recognize that protecting the natural world could be his calling. 

“I think the overall curriculum of Nature Walk really does inspire a love for natural science in any capacity, and learning more about animals and plants and being able to share that with people was really exciting,” he says. “I know it really cemented conservation in my mind as something I want to continue doing.”

This year, your support for Como Friends made it possible to invest in Como’s Nature Walk program with the hiring of Maddie Becker to fill a new assistant role.“Working with Nature Walk has been a fantastic experience. The kids have worked hard this summer, and it’s been so uplifting to help foster an environment where they’ve not only been so welcoming and enthusiastic with the guests that visit their carts, but also in their relationships with each other. Each day they express so much joy for life and the natural world that I am left with nothing but immense hope for our future.”