Q & A compiled and edited by New England Botanic Garden staff
January 2025
Steve Conaway, PhD, Director of Horticulture at New England Botanic Garden
Earlier this month, the Garden announced a new Director of Horticulture. Steven Conaway, PhD, brings more than a decade of experience in public horticulture and conservation to the position. He earned his doctoral degree studying plant pathology at The Pennsylvania State University, and prior to joining the NEBG team, he served as Associate Director of Horticulture at Wave Hill, in NY. We caught up with Steve to learn more about his interests and background, as well as the things he’s excited about here at the Garden.
To kick us off, why public horticulture? What inspired you to go down this career path?
Steve: I’ve always been fascinated with plants, but when I realized the myriad ways that people are involved with plants and how plants affect our lives, that’s what really got me excited and interested in the plant kingdom. And public horticulture really allows me to explore those interactions and share my enthusiasm with the public.
Everyone at the Garden is excited to have you on our team and excited about the expertise you bring. Can you share a little bit about your background, academically, and some of the things you pursued before coming here?
Steve: I’ve had a lifelong focus on plants, both personally and professionally. My parents were avid gardeners, but where I focused my efforts have changed over time. I had an academic career where I studied environmental horticulture and plant pathology. As a plant pathology doctoral student, I investigated biological control of an invasive weed species. All of my colleagues studying plant pathology, they were trying to save plants, valuable plants to people, from disease, and I was taking the opposite track. I was trying to kill plants using naturally occurring plant pathogen. The plant I studied is a really important one in both natural areas as well as agricultural production. It’s a plant called Canada thistle, or a name I really appreciate, cursed thistle, Cirsium arvense. It is still growing in all of the farms, gardens, and natural areas where my field work was based, and it is still a pernicious weed for anyone that encounters it, so, you’ll note that I failed at my attempt to control it, but I’m in a long line of illustrious failures there. During that process, I learned a lot about plant ecology and plant disease modeling. I learned about how plant disease epidemics progress in the landscape and about the more complex interactions between plants and microbes, which is fascinating but also helps us be better gardeners.
How can botanic gardens play a role in translating scientific work into information the public really could benefit from or really needs to know?
Steve: So, the reason I pursued an academic career in plant pathology was because the field was very practical. It’s a lot about problem solving, and plant pathology focuses on the needs of people growing plants for sustenance and other uses. Part of my experience in graduate school was communicating to a lot of different types of people, farmers in southeastern Pennsylvania as well as peers in academic settings, so I find that the most valuable scientific work is work that can be communicated. With a lot of thought and understanding of your audience, all scientific research can be communicated effectively, so the important part is sort of having people or organizations like botanic gardens, to bridge those gaps and see what’s happening in people’s lives and what’s happening on the landscape, what’s happening to plants, and be able to connect the pieces with basic research and the problems at hand.
You have a background in ecological restoration work. What do you see as particularly special or interesting about opportunities for conservation work here at the Garden?
Steve: One of my first experiences here, I think it was day three on the job, was going on a tour of the property with a state ecologist. We walked through priority habitats that have special significance in the state of Massachusetts, we looked at areas where rare and endangered plants have been observed in the past, and we talked about the connecting pieces of the natural areas here in the Garden, within the 200 acres, that are just as valuable as our cultivated spaces in communicating ecology, plant biology, and taxonomy and the story of conservation that we can bring home here in Massachusetts.
What else are you feeling especially excited to get involved in here at the Garden?
Steve: Well, I’ve only been here a month, and in that short period, I have been blown away by how many talented people there are here, and how all of these programs and displays that I was aware of as a visitor, are homespun programs that talented and creative staff and volunteers generate right here in the Garden. Every idea or project that I propose, I’m finding there’s someone with some fascinating backstory that has all kinds of experience and expertise in the most outlandish things that you can think of. And the horticulture team that I work with, they have such terrific talents, but also some really inspiring ideas, and I’m really excited to work with them to put these into practice.
Steve answers more of our burning questions, like, Which conservatory plants catch his eye most? And, What kind of plant would he be, if he could be any plant? Catch these and more when you follow the Garden @NewEnglandBG!