Mission

The Henry Foundation for Botanical Research is a historic botanic garden created by Mary Gibson Henry to inspire responsible environmental stewardship through the study of botany and horticulture. Her enduring vision and passion for North America’s plants give us a unique opportunity and natural setting to educate people on the care and preservation of native flora.

About the Farm

In the 1920s, Mary Gibson Henry and her husband John Norman Henry purchased a farm in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania to build a family home. From the start, Mary recognized the natural beauty of the landscape’s many uncommon features, and began formulating a garden where she could create something useful beyond an aesthetic compliment to her home. Thus the garden would become, through her growing repertoire of horticultural and botanical skills, a benefit to the natural world, which she held in such high regard. With the keen eye of a natural conservationist, Mary Henry observed the incessant encroachment of the presence of man and civilization on the various environments of so many plants growing in wild places. She sought to preserve North American native plants, and save them from the degradation and loss of natural habitat that put incessant pressure on their survival. And Mary Henry’s keen early ecological observations allowed her to bring to Gladwyne hundreds of plants native to many diverse parts of North America. In her garden, she sought to recreate mini-habitats where these plants could not only survive but hopefully prosper in an area so very far from their original native sites. Additionally, due to her well-known successes, she was the recipient of many gifts of plants from botanists and horticulturists in North America and abroad.

Mary Henry’s keen early ecological observations allowed her to bring to Gladwyne hundreds of plants native to many diverse parts of North America.

Mary Henry was determined, focused, and undaunted by the scope of her ambitious undertaking. She proved to be resourceful, and indeed unafraid of the hard physical work involved in finding choice plants in the wild, even in the most remote locations. But her vision and tireless work created from the original landscape a ruggedly beautiful and tranquil wilderness garden. And while it looks entirely natural and wild, even effortless — its appearance belies the enormous effort it actually took her to create it.

History

Mary G. Henry’s life was one of continual curiosity, learning, and intellectual as well as geographical exploration. She and her husband Dr. John Norman Henry both loved the wilderness. Mary Henry was, in the early to mid 20th century, an intrepid explorer. She even made a series of horseback explorations into uncharted portions of British Columbia in the years between 1931 and 1935. These explorations, through very wild and primitive areas, enabled the charting of what had previously been a blank area on Canadian maps. There is a mountain in British Columbia that was named for her, in recognition of her extensive exploration efforts.

Henry eagerly experimented with growing techniques. In her garden, she created new botanical crosses, trialed new plants, maintained meticulous plant and climate records, and she would readily share all she learned with other horticulturalists and botanists.

One of the 20th century’s early conservationists, Mary Henry sought to preserve North American native plants, and save them from the degradation and loss of natural habitat that put incessant pressure on their survival. Thus she became a noted and ardent plant collector, adventurous and unafraid of the hard physical work of finding choice plants in the wild, even in the most remote locations across many states.

Her plant collecting forays into remote and undeveloped areas, especially  throughout the American South and Southeast, were fearless, and the body of horticultural data and botanical information, as well as specimens, which she amassed were more than impressive. Her extensive herbarium of nearly 8000 plants is a permanent collection at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University. Additionally, she gave specimens to the Royal Botanic Garden of Edinburgh, the Arnold Arboretum, and to many herbaria throughout the United States.

Mary Henry saw the garden she had fashioned as not only a place of rare and raw natural beauty, but also as a living laboratory for study and learning. Arising from the unique character of the garden and to ensure its permanency, Mary Henry then founded the Henry Foundation for Botanical Research in 1949. This organization is intended to enhance the understanding of the natural world through the study of botanical arts and sciences, and to inspire responsible stewardship of the natural environment. The Foundation serves as a vehicle to protect the garden Mary G. Henry had so lovingly developed, safeguarding its very special collection of plants into perpetuity and continuing her unique legacy of intellectual curiosity and service through study and research.