Kristen Fiore
Audio By Carbonatix
Donna McGinnis’s favorite plant is the rhododendron, a woody plant with colorful, bell-shaped flowers. Preferring a damp, mild climate and filtered sunlight, rhododendrons don’t thrive in Colorado. But McGinnis is learning to.
McGinnis became the CEO of Denver Botanic Gardens at the beginning of February, following an intense six-month search to fill the position after the death of longtime CEO Brian Vogt. She was appointed unanimously by DBG’s board of trustees.
Coming to Colorado from Florida, where she served as the CEO of the Naples Botanical Garden, McGinnis knew she had big shoes to fill.
“I did get to know Brian Vogt through the garden world,” McGinnis says. “We had served on an industry board together, and I knew he was a very special leader, and just a great person to work with. He built a very successful organization, but also a really great culture with the staff. We’ve got about 300 employees who really had to go through something traumatic when he passed, and it was really a year of limbo, and then a new person coming in.”
While DBG might be new to McGinnis, she’s not new to it. “This institution is so admired in the garden industry,” she says. “It’s one of the biggest in the world in terms of attendance, but it’s also really out front in a number of things in our field that really resonate with me.”
She lists DBG’s work in water conservation, ecological restoration, educational opportunities and a strong volunteer force. “It’s also known for really striving to be connected to its community and really striving to make sure everyone is welcome and has the chance to come,” she adds.
That successful Vogt campaign inspired a lot of other botanical gardens. “The garden I led in Florida really took on that same perspective,” she says. “Gardens have a role to play in the community. Sometimes it’s just to be there and to be open, and to be a safe space for you to set your stress aside and enjoy nature and meditate or think. It’s very often a place where the community needs to gather when something really tragic happens.”
As she strives to maintain DBG’s programs, collaboration with grassroots organizations, and mission to make the gardens accessible for all, McGinnis says she is looking closely at who isn’t coming to the gardens and what potential barriers might be.
“If it’s economic and a matter of ticket price, that we can solve,” she says. “It might be transportation, so we have some creative ways we’ve been looking at that. But some of it’s more nuanced; it’s ‘Do I feel welcome?'”
Denver has been a welcoming place — and a completely new climate — for McGinnis, whose home in Florida was a mere eleven feet above sea level. “The humidity was like a wet towel every day,” says McGinnis, who is originally from Washington and lived in Missouri before coming to Florida. “From a gardens point of view, it’s exciting to have another palette to look at and another ecosystem to get to know, and to see how we do it differently up here at this elevation and climate.”
Kristen Fiore
With all of Florida’s humidity and its typical behavior of at least one random downpour a day in the summer, you’d think that state wouldn’t have to worry about droughts, but more than half of Florida is currently in an extreme drought, an issue McGinnis is now having to deal with as the DBG head as Colorado faces its own drought and Denver Water imposes twice-a-week lawn watering restrictions in the city’s first Stage 1 drought declaration since 2013.
“We’re taking the same 20% water reduction, but what we are really motivated to do is be the place where you can come and learn how to still have a beautiful landscape,” she says.
Water conservation has also been a longtime part of the Gardens’ mission, with education programs and classes teaching people how to maintain their gardens with little water. Almost all of DBG’s own gardens are low-water, with the exception of the annuals garden and a few other spaces.
Meanwhile, DBG has been amping up tips and tricks for gardening with less water on its website and social media and gearing up for its annual Watershed Summit on Wednesday, June 17, when thought leaders, activists and policy makers will gather to talk about the state’s watershed and how to collaborate on water issues facing the whole region.
“We want to educate everyone about what you can still do,” McGinnis says. “You shouldn’t hesitate to have a garden. It’s one of the best things you can do. We strive to provide good information to people who are doing home vegetable gardens, and we want to be a place where people can come and learn how to adapt to the water restrictions and not feel like they have to abandon their plants.”
