Smart Chat – Garden Tour

Stroll the Museum’s grounds with Frederick Bonci, founding principal of LaQuatra Bonci Associates and Natalie Plecity, consulting landscape architect, for a tour of The Robertshaw Family Gardens that surround our new building. Learn about the native plants providing a palette of color that not only changes seasonally but is ever evolving over time. Fred and Natalie will share their approach to the selection of the plants as well as the overall design of the gardens in the context of the architecture that they surround.

Frederick Bonci established LaQuatra Bonci Associates in 1984. The firm’s work focuses on the creation of viable and sustainable urban neighborhoods and towns that integrate natural systems, public open spaces, and parks. Projects include the design of urban parks and park master plans, green initiatives and ecological framework studies, riverfronts, urban neighborhoods, town planning, and site-specific landscape design projects.

Fred is currently a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects, The Urban Land Institute, and the Congress for the New Urbanism. He has served as Chairman of the Western Section of the PA/Delaware Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects.

With a degree from Purdue University, Natalie Plecity has worked on a variety of projects including MIT’s Stata Center, Pack Square Park in Asheville, NC and the Walled Garden in Pittsburgh’s Mellon Park. She is inspired by the power of plants to ignite the senses, bring wonder at every season and provide habitat and sustenance to the natural world.