McKee Botanical Garden Awarded Prestigious Jean and John Greene Prize for Excellence in American Gardening

February 2025

The Garden Conservancy selects McKee as the third recipient of the esteemed prize, which comes with a $45,000 grant to support the garden’s development of a comprehensive, five-year strategic business plan.

The Garden Conservancy is proud to announce that McKee Botanical Garden in Vero Beach, FL, is the recipient of the esteemed Jean and John Greene Prize for Excellence in American Gardening. This prestigious award, accompanied by a $45,000 grant, will support the development of a comprehensive, five-year strategic business plan to ensure the garden’s continued growth and long-term financial sustainability.

McKee Botanical Garden joins an elite group of Greene Prize recipients, following Wethersfield Estate and Garden in Amenia, NY, and Lotusland in Santa Barbara, CA.

The prize has been made possible by a transformational estate gift of nearly $3 million to the Garden Conservancy from John Kaul Greene, who passed away in 2019, after expressing his intention to create an award to recognize excellence in American gardening. Greene, a former Garden Conservancy board member and a lifelong advocate for exceptional gardens, is survived by his wife, Jean, who shared with him an appreciation for the ways gardens enrich our lives, an appreciation that deepened during the four years the couple lived in Europe. The Greenes enjoyed gardening at their Lake Forest, IL home and were longtime supporters of the Chicago Botanic Garden where John served on the board of trustees for more than half a century.

When asked about the significance of recognizing McKee Botanical Garden with the prestigious Award, James Brayton Hall, President and CEO of the Garden Conservancy, said, “I am immensely proud to have advanced McKee’s candidacy! The history of the garden is remarkable, and the work they are doing there is an outstanding model for other public gardens.”

McKee Botanical Garden was founded in 1932 by Cleveland industrialist Arthur McKee and Florida pioneer developer Waldo Sexton, who commissioned William Lyman Phillips, an associate of the Frederick Law Olmsted firm with turning the jungle into a preeminent tropical garden. Award-winning collections of waterlilies and orchids, including cool-growing orchids, flourished in the world’s first mechanically driven air-conditioned greenhouse, engineered and patented by Arthur McKee. Theme-park attractions in central Florida led to the demise of the tropical oasis; it closed and was sold to developers in 1978.

Twenty-years later, with the help of the Indian River Land Trust and the Trust for Public Land, the heart of the original garden was reclaimed. In 1996, the Garden Conservancy recognized the garden’s significance and endorsed the Trust’s preservation efforts.

Rochelle Wolberg, Executive Director of McKee Botanical Garden, noted when accepting the award in New York that, “the Garden Conservancy’s recognition of McKee’s preservation efforts at that time helped McKee to secure National Historic Landmark status and recognition and funding from state, national and international agencies.” She added that “for the Garden Conservancy to recognize McKee once again, with this prestigious national award, is an unequivocal affirmation of our respective missions.”

When McKee Jungle Gardens opened in 1932, The New York Times positioned it as “among the most important gardens in the world.” This was long before anyone worried that an organization would be necessary to help preserve gardens for future generations. However, a wise plantsman named Frank Cabot saw this need in 1989, which ironically was the same year McKee was in the clutches of a developer with permits for a 375,000-square-foot shopping center and 875 parking spaces. Mr. Cabot’s vision became The Garden Conservancy, the country’s preeminent gardening organization intent on preserving public and private gardens throughout the country.