… to the new Liberty Hyde Bailey Conservatory Greenhouse.
Thursday, Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station staff moved three trailer loads of larger specimens from the Kenneth Post Lab greenhouse complex where the collection has been housed since the old conservatory closed in 2010.
The new conservatory is located in the same spot on Tower Road outside of the Plant Science Building as the original greenhouse, which was designed by architects Lord & Burnham Co. in 1931 for Liberty Hyde Bailey, the first dean of the College of Agriculture and a prominent palm taxonomist.
The conservatory houses one of several plant collections that make up the Liberty Hyde Bailey Hortorium in the Plant Biology Section of the School of Integrative Plant Science. The collection numbers more than 650 species (including Cornell’s popular Titan Arums) that play a vital role in teaching, research and outreach.
Staff moved the mostly tropical plants before the weather turns too cold to damage them in transit. (Smaller plants will follow, but can be moved later in heated vans.) The large plants are being staged in the Student House section of the conservatory closest to the Plant Science Building. But they will soon be moved into the planting bed in the Palm House section closest to Tower Road.
Once all the plants have been moved and settled in to their new home, hours when the public is welcome to visit will be announced.