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.”
One of Watson’s favorite spots in the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory is the North Garden, home of a long-standing fig tree they’ve affectionately dubbed “Figaro.” To keep the fig from overgrowing its setting, the tree was recently pollarded by Watson and horticulturists Jennifer Love, Isaac Zaman, and Rylee Werden. Pollarding is an age-old system of repeated methodical pruning in which the upper branches of a tree are removed. The result is increased growth at the cut points and a dense head of foliage and branches. A pollarded tree has characteristic knobs at the end of the main branches, like you see today.
Thanks to your generous support, the horticulture team has a lift and other essential tools to carefully trim and maintain the beautiful trees throughout Como’s indoor garden spaces, keeping them healthy and vibrant for everyone to enjoy.
