When public horticulture undergraduate Julie Hollingsworth Hogg talks about her town of Alpharetta, Georgia, she speaks of tree canopies, city parks, and community vegetable gardens. As founder and president of Alpharetta Arboretum Inc., Hogg is a self-described missionary for all things green.
“My purpose in this is kind of what you saw the day after 9/11. That day the U.S. parks had the highest attendance in decades. I think that speaks to the need that people have to go be quiet and find the peace that sitting among trees and other plants has to offer,” Hogg says.
“I think people get out of touch with the natural world. I’d like to see adults, children, and the elderly having access to that regularly—to bring them outdoors so that they can know the therapeutic benefits of being outside, which are many.”
The new non-profit organization that she leads is responsible for designating and maintaining specimen trees in parks in Alpharetta, one of Atlanta’s most far-flung suburbs. Although growing in its operations, the Alpharetta Arboretum has already received a prestigious honor: the Georgia Urban Forest Council recognized it as the Outstanding Civic Organization for 2008.
Hogg coordinates the work of a six-member board that includes the president of Alpharetta’s convention and tourism bureau, a city councilman, the chair of the city’s tree commission, a member of the city’s Parks and Recreation Commission, and its former arborist. At the university, she has been in a student project that is helping to plan a LEED-certified visitor education center for the UT Gardens, an addition that Hogg says would benefit everyone.
For her own future, Hogg sees a continued association with the Alpharetta Arboretum. “I’d really love to see us have our own arboretum and botanical garden one day—to be a real place for people to go. I’d love to establish us to that point.”
With her talent and organization, that seed of an idea seems likely to flourish. – courtesy Tennessee Land Life & Science Magazine
