New Associate Director of The Botanic Gardens at Kona Kai Resort

As promised, in this post you'll be introduced to the new Associate Director of The Botanic Gardens at Kona Kai Resort. Her name is Emily Magnaghi and we met in December of last year, when she came down to Key Largo to take a tour with me and see what The Botanic Gardens at Kona Kai Resort was all about. At the time, she was living in Miami and working in Everglades National Park monitoring plant populations after a restoration project. We got along very well and it was great having someone come by for a tour who really knew their plants. After the tour, we kept in touch and got together a few times for day trips throughout the Keys. On one of our trips, I mentioned that we had been trying to acquire a few specimens of Pilosocereus robinii, a Florida Keys native cactus, and she happened to know one of the people up at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden who was propagating those plants for their conservation program. After a few phone calls and introductions and a proposal for our intentions of use for the cacti, we had three specimens here for the Gardens.

One of the specimens of Pilosocereus robinii (Key tree cactus) Emily helped us acquire, at home in the Gardens.

About this time, I was pretty sure my time at Kona Kai was limited, so after getting to know Emily better and seeing her enthusiasm for plants and her understanding of their importance to humans and the world as a whole, I began to think she might make a great successor to my position here at the Gardens. Once I was sure I was going to be leaving, I encouraged her to apply for my position, as I thought she'd be a great fit. After a number of interviews with Joe and Ronnie, everyone seemed to agree, and so we welcomed her as the newest addition to The Botanic Gardens at Kona Kai Resort just over a month ago, during which time I've been helping her learn all she needs to know to take the Gardens into its next stage of life, which I have no doubt will be a beautiful one. And so, it is with great pride that I now hand this blog over to Emily, whom you'll get to know a bit better by the time this post is through...

Here's Emily beside Alpinia purpurata, a beautiful ornamental ginger plant.

Thank you SO much Rick! He has been a wonderful, patient mentor to me during this past month as I have been learning all the ropes here at the Gardens. I have been fortunate to overlap with him for several weeks now which, I think it's safe to say, is making the transition easier for everyone. Rick has done such a wonderful job building the program over the past 3 1/2 years. His organizational skills are outstanding which has made finding all the files and information I need very easy. His presence and energy on the tours are always very calming yet enthusiatic. He is a good role model to strive to emulate. We will have to find a way to commemorate Rick in the Gardens! We will all truly miss Rick and wish him well on his next journey in life. I hope he will come visit us again in the future.

I know, it's a tough one...Magnaghi. Say: "mahn-YA-ghee" and be very expressive like you're really Italian. You can even use your hands to get into the role, or come by the Gardens and we can practice Italian together!

I grew up in Florida as a snow-bird, like many folks here. My summers were spent exploring National Parks elsewhere in the United States, while during the school year I was in Naples (Florida, not Italy). My path to botany was via the underwater world which I greatly enjoyed as a child. Along this path, I happened to take a botany class and this changed everything. Plants fascinated me! In the middle of winter in Michigan, here were these vibrant creatures growing in the greenhouses at the University of Michigan's Matthaei Botanical Gardens. I looked forward to that hour once a week more than anything that semester, as the plants and sunlight in the glasshouse chased the winter blues away.

After reconsidering my path of study, I decided to change course and follow the greenery. Many years later, after practicing restoration with native plants, studying plant taxonomy, pressing herbarium specimens in San Francisco and performing plant surveys for the California High Speed Train project, I find myself back home in South Florida finally enjoying the tropical diversity.

Here I am leading one of my first tour groups around the Gardens. I hope I received high marks from Rick on this one!

I am very excited about my new role at The Botanic Gardens at Kona Kai Resort. Stay tuned for more information on what I hope to learn and accomplish in my role as Associate Director in my next blog post.


Emily B. Magnaghi
Associate Director