Meredith is a longtime perennial gardener and naturalistic planting connoisseur, with particular interest in modern planting design and environmental stewardship. She first visited Piet and Anja Oudolf’s nursery and gardens in Hummelo, The Netherlands in the spring of 2007. As an organizing volunteer with Oudolf Garden Detroit, Meredith has led the plant and bulb sourcing, and garden installation efforts. Going forward, Meredith is serving as COO of Friends of Oudolf Garden, and is working on the Belle Isle garden’s care, maintenance, volunteer and public outreach programs.

After participating in the large-scale volunteer planting of the Oudolf Meadow at Delaware Botanic Garden, Meredith worked with the team at Chicago’s Lurie Garden and with Roy Diblik, studying successful Oudolf garden care and maintenance practices over time. Her long-term goal is to serve the people of Detroit and SE Michigan by maintaining a world-class public garden with ecological practices, guided by the artistic vision and design direction of Piet Oudolf.

Richard Thomas studied Art and Education at Indiana Wesleyan University but immediately took up an administrative career in Health Care upon graduation. The education was funded in large part by scholarship and remaining expenses for education were met by working in a local plant nursery. The love for propagation, maintenance and knowledge of plants beyond a normal gardening interest turned, over the years, to a much broader base in the search for knowledge of native plants and habitat. Motivated to study and emulate successful practice in horticulture outside of formal education has led Richard to a number of unusual opportunities. An example is the work he did for the National Parks and Recreation Dept., recreating the original design for Teddy Roosevelt's Flower Garden on his Long Island home, Sagamore Hill (National Registry of Historic Sites). This was based on old photographs of dignitaries visiting the garden during Teddy Roosevelt's years in office. Seven years following that project, a trunk of old documents found in a nearby plant nursery proved every choice made to be historically correct. Richard has run (and is now retiring from) an estate gardening business for 30 years. Richard is a member of The Garden Club of Michigan, the organization sponsoring the design that resulted in the Oudolf Garden Detroit project on Belle Isle. It has been an incredible dream project to be part of and learn from the great master, Piet Oudolf. The project on Belle Isle continues to fuel a boundless enthusiasm for personal learning as well as for introducing people to plants in ecologically sound relationships.