Waterfront Botanical Gardens hires first Director of Horticulture and Education, Jamie Burghardt
Waterfront Botanical Gardens is under construction with the first building to open in October 2019. Garden design and educational program development is underway. Jamie Burghardt has been hired to lead these efforts. Up until this point, all staff has been administrative; this will be the first employee focused (specifically) on horticulture and garden design.
Jamie Burghardt was most recently the Operations and Horticulture Manager at The Gardens on Spring Creek, City of Fort Collins, Colorado. Prior to that, he was the Horticulture Coordinator at Coastal Georgia Botanical Gardens in Savannah, Georgia. Jamie has a BA in Biology from Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota, and an MS in Public Horticulture from University of
Delaware.
Jamie’s responsibilities will include collaborating with landscape architects, Perkins+Will, on the design of the Waterfront Botanical Gardens, and managing their affiliate location, Avish Gardens, at The Avish estate, owned by Steve and Merry-Kay Poe. Jamie will be leading educational programming for adults and students at both locations. Programming at Avish Gardens will begin in Spring
2019, and at the Waterfront Botanical Gardens’ Graeser Family Education Center in Fall 2019.
President, Kasey Maier, said, “We are very excited to have Jamie on board to fine tune the vision of what the Waterfront Botanical Gardens will be, and to develop impactful educational programming. It’s time we have someone on staff who will be seen as an important part of Louisville’s horticulture community.”