Committed volunteers from Como Friends’ community of corporate and business sponsors keep Como Park Zoo & Conservatory growing

Every year, more than 600 volunteers from around the community give more than 28,000 hours of their time and talents to Como Park Zoo & Conservatory—an in-kind contribution that’s equivalent to more than $1 million every year. 

Now, that volunteer tally includes 26 arborists from Bartlett Tree Experts who just dedicated a full day of service to replacing and replanting the leafy allée that leads to the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory’s historic entrance. 

“Our company encourages every local office to shut down for the entire day and move out to volunteer in the community,” says Jeffrey Metcalf, a commercial arborist representative at Bartlett, which has brought its expertise to a number of tree projects at Como over the years, including tree pruning work in the Charlotte Partridge Ordway Japanese Garden. As the company considered where to dedicate their day of community service, “our entire staff was very excited about the possibility of making their mark at Como.”

Working in partnership with Ray Watson, horticultural curator of the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory, and Caroline Mehlhop, Como Friends’ director of institutional partnerships and events, volunteers from Bartlett committed to supporting a plan to renew the tree canopy around Como’s front door. With a number of linden trees lining the drive that were damaged by snow plows and school buses, diseased, or with root systems heaving up the sidewalks, Watson came up with a plan to replace them with hardier and more varied specimens, including the columnar hackberry, the Kindred Spirit white oak, and the Japanese tree lilac. The mix gives Como more options if disease or damage affects one species. Watson says their upright, columnar forms also harken to Como’s early history, when Italianate tree plantings were all the rage. 

In mid-September, Bartlett’s team took down nine aging and root-bound trees, and replaced them with a total of 16 new arrivals that have already transformed the approach to the Conservatory’s entrance. With trees donated by Legacy Trees, a local nursery wholesaler, and work performed by Bartlett staffers, the day of service amounted to a $45,000 contribution to Como’s horticultural operations. 

“We’re always pleased to welcome volunteers from the community that can help with various projects, but having highly skilled labor from the arborists at Bartlett’s was exactly what we needed to get this project done in a day,” says Watson. 

Metcalf says his co-workers are just as pleased with the effort, especially knowing contributions like this help preserve free admission at Como, where nearly two million annual visitors will get to see their work. “Como’s free admission is phenomenal, and it makes us proud to support it,” he says. “It’s going to be very exciting to watch every year to see the work we did continue to grow and expand.”

While the growing season is winding down across the state, it never stops at the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory, where Como’s talented team of horticulturists is planning, planting, and prepping all year long. Meet the horticulturists who make it all happen: 

Management

Ray: The Marjorie McNeely Conservatory’s curator, Ray came to Como with a layered conservation background, with roles in education and youth engagement, agriculture and landscape design, and genomic research and COVID science. 

Bryn: The horticulture supervisor behind all of the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory’s outdoor gardens and displays, Bryn also works closely with Como Zoo keepers to protect the birds, reptiles, and fish that live in Tropical Encounters, while keeping the jungle vines and plants from taking over. 

Deirdre: The Conservatory’s newest arrival, Deirdre is the horticulture supervisor in charge of greenhouse operations. With a background in commercial growing, she’s also the point person for the Conservatory’s Priva system—automated controls that help growers mimic Mother Nature. 

Ariel: Horticulture supervisor and flower show designer, Ariel has led Como’s shift from a top‑down flower show model to a deeply collaborative process, cutting waste, stretching the budget, and encouraging more experimentation. 

collections

Reva: Como’s resident bonsai guru, Reva has the rare ability to see what a tree will look like in five or ten years, training a single branch on some of Como’s potted trees for years at a time. With specialized training that’s taken her from Portland, Oregon, to Japan, Reva cares for a bonsai collection that’s been named one of the best in the Midwest.

Jen: Showcasing the connections between plants and people is the narrative of Como’s North Garden, an ethnobotanical space that’s critical to many of Como’s education programs. With her background in anthropology and interpretation, Jen is a great ambassador for what makes plants so amazing, helping visitors see when important plants in her collection are about to bloom. 

Jess: Japanese garden specialist Jess has been part of the Charlotte Partridge Ordway Japanese Garden’s stunning transformation, revealing the original intention of Nagasaki landscape architect Masami Matsuda. With a background in garden design, she frames picturesque scenes with precise lines in this treasured corner of Como. 

Victoria: Lead horticulturist in the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory’s Fern Room, Victoria is often seen in her hip waders knee-deep in Como’s water gardens, which she also manages. Passionate about public engagement, she promotes gardener talks and conservation projects, including a Como Friends Conservation Champions project that highlighted the beauty and biodiversity of Minnesota’s bogs. 

Rylee: A champion of native plants and beneficial bugs, Rylee’s work with Integrated Pest Management has allowed Como to dramatically reduce chemical applications on plants. A passionate proponent of using natives in home gardens, Rylee’s frequent gardener talks are full of great tips! 

Bo: Como’s greenhouse gatekeeper, Bo handles thousands of incoming plugs, giving them a preventive dip before they enter production. With big crops that include holiday poinsettias and spring bulbs, Bo also cultivates tiny but mighty collections of Minnesota native species and carnivorous plants. 

Isaac: With a strong design eye for color and floral arrangement, Isaac also brings deep experience and positive energy to working with student volunteers, interns, and RightTrack apprentices at the Conservatory. 

Alejandro: If you loved Como’s contributions to the Winter Carnival Orchid Show, or the fresh new feel of the Palm Dome, you have Alejandro to thank. Using extra plants to create vivid vignettes, Alejandro is bringing more color to Como’s historic collections, and doesn’t mind breaking tradition, like emptying the Palm Dome’s central fountain to refill it with poinsettias during the holidays. 

outdoor

Marie: The designer behind Como’s seasonal Gates Ajar mosaiculture, Marie keeps this century-old Como floriculture tradition looking fresh every summer. In the Minnesota Garden, her work helps drive the move away from monocultures toward more colorful, ecologically rich plantings.  

John: Como’s new lily pond specialist, John propagates and cares for Como’s aquatic crops while experimenting with new ways to design in and around the Conservatory’s gorgeous seasonal water gardens.  

Jake: Another water garden collaborator, Jake also designed the meadow garden around the Frog Pond, turning a steep, high‑maintenance mowed slope into a wildflower meadow with mown paths and seating spots that frame the best views. Check it out this season!

Robin: Como’s newest outdoor gardener, Robin is learning the full landscape at Como, underscoring the Conservatory’s new strategic approach to sharing knowledge and seeing the whole system, not just one assigned garden or collection. 

The first half of the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory’s Fall Flower Show is stepping into the drama and folklore of magical plants, showcasing some unexpected choices alongside the show’s traditional mums. In the seasonal lead-up to Halloween, horticulturist Rylee Werden is taking her design inspiration from a mix of spooky and poisonous plants, medicinal herbs, and a little bit of moonglow. 

One area of the display features poisonous plants, like datura, or jimsonweed, and castor bean, which is used to make the powerful toxin, ricin. Another area reveals a moon garden, planted with white blooms and foliage that stand out at dusk and after dark. While it’s a natural theme for creating a Halloween vibe, Werden says the garden style is also good for the environment: “Moon gardens attract nighttime pollinators like moths.” She’s also shaping plantings into subtle moon phases, outlined with darker flowers that have tiny white or yellow centers, to create the effect of a starry night sky.

The most interactive space will be the kitchen witch’s garden, an aromatic herb plot meant to engage all the senses. “I’ve got parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, coriander, peppermint, lemon balm, and lavender and basil as well,” she says, adding that she hopes visitors will lean in for a little aromatherapy. 

The first half of the Fall Flower Show runs September 18 to October 18 only. Following a show change, part two of the Fall Flower Show will begin October 23, pairing traditional chrysanthemums with bonsai mums, Japanese maples, and Japanese Hakone grass. All of the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory’s five seasonal flower shows are free to the public, thanks to contributions from Como Friends supporters like you. Thank you!

Como’s historic Gates Ajar has a new theme grown right from the headlines

With more than 4,000 plants needed to create Como’s historic Gates Ajar mosaiculture every year, assistant gardener Marie Day usually has a strong idea about her design plans several months before the up-right garden feature makes its seasonal debut.

“What’s funny is that this is the first year I hadn’t selected a theme by fall,” she says. “I just couldn’t come up with anything.” Six months later, the answer was obvious: the “Rebel Loon,” the viral symbol of Minnesota’s community, character, and resilience that’s now seen on t-shirts, beer cans, and tattoos across the state. The image is so 2026, she says, “that even before I’d finished installing the outline of the loon, people were coming up to me, and were really excited about it. They understood exactly what it was.” 

A design motif originally created and shared by Moorhead’s Bernardo Anderson in January, the Rebel Loon is now fully installed on the left side of the Gates Ajar structure, located just east of Lexington Parkway. On the opposite side is a monarch butterfly, the powerful pollinator that makes one of the earth’s most epic migrations. Together, these two Minnesota icons have become instantly Instagrammable, inspiring many visitors who are discovering Gates Ajar for the first time.

“This is the first year where I’ve been hearing from people who are visiting the park just to see Gates Ajar,” says Day, who often spends a half hour or more every day just watering the structure. “The other day, I met a woman who had brought a friend visiting from the East Coast specifically to see it.”

No matter what the seasonal theme, Gates Ajar is a unique piece of Como history, and one of the oldest mosaiculture displays in the country. The installation was the brainchild of the St. Paul parks’ very first superintendent, Frederick Nussbaumer, a German landscape designer who honed his craft at London’s Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew before emigrating to the United States. At the turn of the 20th century, building topiary-like sculptures from plant material was the height of European flower fashion. But the flower display also has a distinctly Minnesota flavor, taking its name from “The Golden Legend,” an 1851 poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, whose epic poem “Song of Hiawatha” was wildly popular with the Twin Cities’ early parks designers. 

Day says Gates Ajar typically reaches its peak in early August, when foundational plants like echeveria, hens and chicks, and Graptosedum, and trailing plants such as petunia and ivy are fully grown and beautifully integrated. “The public response to this one has been incredible,” Day says, adding how much it means to carry on a Como tradition that’s lasted more than 100 years. “It’s public art and it is for everybody, so it’s exciting to see how much it still resonates with people.”

A host of recent improvements at the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory made possible by Como Friends and the Manitou Fund are promoting plant health and elevating the visitor experience at the same time.

Finding time to renovate a busy space is a challenge familiar to many homeowners. But at the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory, one of Minnesota’s most visited destinations, scheduling repairs is a next-level headache, says horticultural supervisor Ariel Dressler.

“When we look at the calendar, we’re usually booked for weddings and other events every week of the year,” she says. But when her staff saw an opening emerging between the end of June and the 4th of July holiday, campus leaders quickly seized the opportunity to schedule some long-awaited repairs in the Sunken Garden, Como’s busiest and most beautiful room.

To make the most of the limited time available, Como coordinated with multiple contractors at once. “We had one contractor to do glass repair, another to repair the vent motor and arms, and then, because we had the whole room scaffolded, we knew it was a chance to do a deep cleaning on the star lights, and to update the wiring,” she says. With the whole room in a state of upheaval, it was also a great time to send the bronze statue Play Days off to conservators to make a small repair to one of the frog spouts.

While visitors are unlikely to notice many of these improvements when the Sunken Garden reopens on June 9, horticulturists are excited by the repairs, all part of a series of infrastructure improvements made possible, in part, by Como Friends over the past year.

Creating better ventilation within the Conservatory’s gardens and growing spaces has been a particular focus as rising temperatures put stress on plants—even those accustomed to tropical climates. In recent months, the Sunken Garden, the Fern Room, and the Orchid House have all seen substantial repairs to ventilation systems that are tied to the Conservatory’s Priva system, the computerized control network that allows staff to automate and monitor temperatures and airflow across rooms.

“We’ve been through a couple of really hot summers where a sunny day can generate temperatures of 100 degrees in our Conservatory rooms, so any window you can open is much appreciated,” Dressler says, noting that new exhaust fans are also on the way for the Fern Room. “It’s hard to keep ferns happy during heat waves, so this will be a big improvement.”

In a structure made entirely of glass, creating shade for plants that require it is also critical. This season, the Orchid House got a major shade upgrade that’s protecting plants from leaf bleaching and other problems that come from overexposure. In the greenhouse, the Conservatory has replaced shades in two growing bays with systems that allow for taller plants while helping to melt snow and ice from the greenhouse roof. A new blackout curtain also allows horticulturists to precisely control daylight hours for chrysanthemums grown for Como’s Fall Flower Show and poinsettias grown for the Holiday Flower Show. 

While visitors may never notice new glass panes, vents, and shades, Dressler says they may notice the impact of these improvements in the months ahead. “It may not seem that exciting to our guests, but to gardeners we know these investments are really going to help the foliage appearance and plant health overall,” she says.  

Thank you for your support in helping the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory’s plants and gardens thrive!

“Alice in Wonderland” is the inspiration behind Como’s Summer Flower Show opening June 12

“The whole show will have a really narrative feel,” says apprentice designer Leela Karlson. “The beginning will take visitors down the rabbit hole, and then going in, the garden tea party with the Mad Hatter and the March Hare, and then at the end, it’ll be all about the Red Queen. Visitors will see some fun topiaries, some props, and it’ll just be very fun and whimsical.” 

For instance, horticulturists will suggest the tea party vibe with plants and flowers that feature cup-shaped leaves, saucers of succulents, and soft pastels. Meanwhile, crimson-colored flowers allude to the Red Queen, the most dangerous croquet player on the page. 

Telling stories through flowers and plants has been a theme this year in the Sunken Garden, which kicked off this spring with a flower show inspired by the myth of Persephone, the Greek goddess of growth. But what’s also special about this show is that it was designed by a team of horticultural apprentices from RightTrack, the City of St. Paul’s career development program, which engages youth from cost-burdened households with part- and full-time employment opportunities around the city. While unpaid internships have long been part of the expected career path for aspiring horticulturists, the RightTrack program provides full- and part-time pay to high school youth and college students eligible for the program, removing economic barriers to participation, and cultivating a more diverse workforce.

Karlson, a senior at the University of Minnesota, has been part of the program for more than a year, taking advantage of opportunities to learn about everything from bonsai training to the operations of Como’s 30,000-square-foot growing range. “During the school year I’m juggling school and two other jobs, so being full-time at Como gave me the chance to really focus and make the most of this experience,” she says. “As a landscape architecture major, it’s really important to understand horticulture, too, and this has given me that chance. Having this kind of experience is incredibly useful on my resume.” 

Understanding the art and aesthetic behind Como’s elegant potted trees

With more than 100 potted trees—including one specimen that’s more than 450 years old—the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory’s bonsai collection is one of the best in the Midwest with a diverse range of species and styles. But one factor that really sets it apart from other collections may be Minnesota’s harsh winters. “I think our collection may be grown in the coldest climate of any botanical garden collection in the country,” says Reva Kos, the horticulturist who’s shaped the collection for two decades. “In California, you’ll see bonsai everywhere, but here it’s more challenging.”

But by spring, when the risk of frost subsides, Kos starts selecting the best trees in the collection for their big moment in the Mother’s Day Bonsai Show, slated for May 9 and 10. A long-standing Como tradition produced in partnership with members of the Minnesota Bonsai Society, the two-day exhibit features some of Como’s best specimens in the Ordway Gardens’ indoor display and outdoor vitrines, as well as favorites from private collections. As the state’s bonsai aficionados are putting the finishing touches on their most treasured trees, Como Friends asked Kos to share her tips and tricks for bonsai beginners.

Asian Roots: Bonsai has roots that go back to China in 700 AD where crafting elegant potted trees or pun-sai was only for the elite. By the 1200s, bonsai had become a mainstay of Japanese horticulture, spreading through Europe and the West by the late 19th century. As a result, every culture has a favored style, from the densely “helmeted” trees you might see in a European collection, to the airier American style influenced by California bonsai master John Yoshio Naka, who believed branches must “leave room for the birds to fly through.” No matter where they come from, Kos says, bonsai are typically planted in a soilless mixture of pumice, lava rock, and akadama, a granular clay-like material mined from the volcanic soil near Japan’s Mount Fuji. 

Pick the Right Plant: Almost any woody plant or shrub can be formed into a bonsai, but Kos urges beginners to make sure the plant you’re choosing will thrive in the conditions where it will live. “Bonsai are plants, so they generally do best outside, but there are some species that do very well indoors,” she says. “You want to try to mimic the temperature conditions that woody or herbaceous plants would need to grow outside, so if you’ve chosen a plant that requires a period of cold and dormancy to grow, try to create that at home.” If you’re planning to keep your bonsai indoors, tropical and subtropical plants like ficus and podocarpus are good choices for home growing. Ready for a faster start? This month, the Como Friends Gift Shop is featuring dozens of beginner bonsai for purchase. (Como Friends members enjoy 15 percent off every purchase!)

Find Design Inspiration: There are dozens of different bonsai styles, each with their own aesthetic goals. For instance, the forest-style bonsai (Yose-ue) features multiple plants in a staggered formation to create the sense of a deep forest in fine detail. Other styles of bonsai try to recreate the look of a wind-swept tree struggling to survive (Fukinagashi), an upright plant reaching straight for the sun (Chokkan), or the dip and flow of a cascading river (Kengai). Check out Instagram, Pinterest, and other sites for visual inspiration, as well as the many bonsai blogs that provide tips about training these potted trees over time.

Be Patient, Not Precious: As Como’s resident bonsai guru, Kos has the rare ability to see what a tree will look like in five or ten years, training individual trees for years at a time. While this kind of gardening takes great patience, she cautions against being overly precious with your plants. “Anyone can start a bonsai, but it’s harder to learn if you’re afraid to touch it. I really enjoy pruning, so you just have to have the confidence to trim and prune in the way you want it to grow,” she says. “Take your time, because if you’re in a hurry, you can kill your tree if you try to do everything at once. But don’t be afraid to experiment because that’s how you learn the most. When you make mistakes, that’s how you become better.”

Grow Your Community: Once your bonsai hobby takes root, consider joining the Minnesota Bonsai Society, an all-volunteer group whose members have a long history of support for the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory’s public collection of bonsai. “We have a mutually beneficial exchange, where they help provide volunteers who help us with our collection, while we help generate public interest in bonsai,” Kos says. “The Minnesota Bonsai Society is a great resource and their members are very helpful and excited to share their knowledge.”

Enjoy a sneak peek at part two of Como’s Spring Flower Show, now through June 7

Following the elegant and literary Persephone show, the Sunken Garden has undergone yet another transformation this season for part two of the Spring Flower Show now through June 7. Designed by Como horticulturist Bo Akinkuotu, the display features rich colors in high contrast, and a host of unusual flowers.

“At this point on the calendar, we can safely say we’re in spring,” Akinkuotu says. “So a lot of the plants you’ll see here are not frost tolerant—they’re late spring flowers that feel like we’re getting a little jump on the season.”

Peachy orange blooms like Asiatic lily ‘Lava Joy’, calla lily ‘Havana’, hibiscus ‘Orange Sunset’, and peach-colored begonias were chosen to contrast with deep blue verbena, lobelia, and fragrant heliotrope. Visitors will also notice a few scene-stealers mixed in with more traditional choices. 

“One flower visitors may not have seen before is calceolaria, sometimes called the pocketbook plant, which has these pouch-shaped flowers,” he says. Another is the gladiator allium, a special ornamental onion that reaches heights of five feet, with round purple flower heads that resemble a plant from Dr. Seuss. 

With pollinator-friendly plantings and more sustainable landscape practices, horticulturists at the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory are role-modeling the ways you can invite more wildlife into your own backyard

Last fall, as the growing season came to a close, horticulturist Robin Takahashi made a point of keeping the Skipper Garden between Como Zoo’s bird yard and the orangutan habitat in a careful state of decay. Rather than raking up leaves and cutting dead foliage, she kept plant skeletons in place over the winter in hopes of creating an inviting home for the Dakota skipper (Hesperia dacotae), a critically endangered butterfly that was once native to Minnesota’s tall grass prairies. 

“Skipper butterflies, when they’re caterpillars, will wrap themselves up in a blade of grass and nibble on it, so you might never know they’re there,” she says. “Cutting back ornamental grasses in the fall can wipe out their habitat, so instead, I leave about 6 inches of grass into the spring.”

Skipper Butterfly photo taken by Volunteer for the Minnesota DNR

Encouraging Como visitors to invite more pollinators into their own backyards and landscapes is part of the mission of this year’s Party for the Planet, Como’s weekend-long Earth Day celebration powered by Xcel Energy, scheduled for April 25–26. But it’s also become a growing part of the design plan for the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory’s outdoor gardens. In recent years, Como’s been making a quiet but critical evolution toward more sustainable practices—both to attract the birds, bees, butterflies, and other pollinators that signal a healthy ecosystem, and to mitigate the present and future effects of climate change.

“Plants can get stressed out by the changes in climate that are really abrupt and dramatic,” explains Como’s Bryn Fleming, the horticultural supervisor who oversees all of the Conservatory’s exterior gardens. “For instance, as we’ve seen more really heavy rain in June over the last couple of seasons, a lot of home gardeners may be noticing that their lilacs are getting really cranky, and are more susceptible to a fungal disease that’s more prevalent when things are super wet and warm.” 

As Como horticulturists encounter these trends, they’re taking a close look at the care, feeding, and cultivation of every corner of Como’s 18-acre campus to ensure the flowers, plants, shrubs, and trees they install this season can be sustained for the long term. “It’s a process that every gardener should probably be doing right now,” Fleming says, “starting with the question, how much time do you actually have? How much water do you want to use, and how often? Are you planting something that’s prone to disease, and will you have to use chemicals to keep it looking great? In a way, it’s about being more realistic about what will last, and rethinking some of our choices as we go forward.”

That approach is well underway in the Minnesota Garden that greets visitors at Como’s front door. Originally installed a decade ago with native and adaptive plants, horticulturist Marie Day has been leading the garden’s evolution toward exclusively native plants, which have the advantage of requiring less water, and being more drought tolerant. 

The Enchanted Garden, opposite the Conservatory’s historic entrance, is also undergoing a shift. “In the past there has been a heavy reliance on traditional annual bedding plants, which require heavy amounts of weekly watering,” says assistant gardener Jake Frechette. “Now we are highlighting the power of perennials and self-sown annuals, and we also leave this garden standing over the winter, as the spent stems and leaves provide cover and the seedheads provide food over winter for the critters.”

Frechette has also been reimagining the steep slope around Como’s Frog Pond as an ornamental meadow, adding clover, wildflowers, and spring bulbs to a hard-to-mow section of traditional turf, while creating more inviting viewing spaces where visitors can spread a blanket. “It’s a great example of how you can turn your turf into a multispecies collection or garden,” says Fleming. “A lot of people are interested in moving away from grass in their lawns toward plants that can harbor more birds and insects, but it can be hard to envision. This is a great way of showing visitors what grass looks like when you don’t cut it and start incorporating other species.” 

All around Como Park Zoo & Conservatory, visitors may also notice new plantings of parsley, cilantro, dill, and fennel—ideal host plants for supporting black swallowtail caterpillars. “We are treating it as a little experiment, to see which herbs the local butterfly population prefers,” says horticulturist Rylee Werden. “While it’s more commonly known that adult butterflies need flowers for nectar to eat, those same insects need host plant foliage to eat, so planting extra herbs this year is a great way to support butterfly habitat throughout the season, and through their whole life cycle. It might help make gardeners less upset when a caterpillar is chomping their garden to know it will turn into a beautiful butterfly.”

Every Wednesday morning, Como volunteer Paul Storch arrives hours before Como’s public opening, drains the water from the pool at the center of the Palm Dome, collects the coins visitors have tossed in through the week, and contemplates “Crest of the Wave,” the beaux arts bronze created by sculptor Harriet Frishmuth. 

While the sculpture, famously modeled more than a century ago by the dancer Desha Delteil, has been delighting Como visitors for decades, Storch takes a more critical view. A retired museum conservator, he dusts and details the iconic artwork, while studying how the statue’s wax coating is standing up to the elements, noting where minerals and moisture might be building up. From there, he’ll go on to clean and polish the bronze plaques and brass kickplates all around the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory, one of the most beloved buildings on Minnesota’s roster of sites on the National Register of Historic Places.

Taking care of Como’s treasures is a team effort that requires the collaboration of Como’s maintenance staff, horticulturists, community volunteers, and outside contractors. Earlier this winter, all of those forces came together to tend to Como’s two most iconic sculptures, “Crest of the Wave” in the Palm Dome, and “Play Days” in the Sunken Garden. 

1). When decades of wear and tear split the copper tubes feeding water to the bubbling frogs on “Play Days,” Como entrusted their replacement to KCI Conservation, a Minneapolis-based art conservation firm. Following a short stay in the studio of conservators Laura Kubick and Kristin Cheronis, the statue was returned to the Sunken Garden for a coordinated treatment and training session about caring for the fountain bronzes.  

2). Como horticulturist Bryn Fleming helps give the statue a full cleaning, removing accumulated grime and buildup on the metal. During the process, older wax is stripped from the statue to allow conservators to reapply a new protective layer. 

3). Using a propane torch, conservators gently heat the bronze surface and apply a thin coat of hot wax. Once it dries, the surface is buffed for a second coat of cold wax. This layered wax system can protect the statue from moisture and other irritants for a year or longer.