Tucson, AZ (March 1, 2018) – When residents Larry Abrams and Phoebe Olmsted first met at a ppl volleyball class at Splendido, a LIfe Plan Community in Oro Valley, neither friend realized the other also shared an interest in gardening. Yet when the time came to work together to establish an award-winning garden that would benefit the natural habitat as well as residents at Splendido’s health center Sonora, neither friend could hide their green thumb, and a seed was planted.
“This was all Larry’s idea,” demurs Olmsted, who moved to Splendido about four years ago from her native New Hampshire. While the Sonora garden project is the first she’s been involved with since moving to Splendido, gardening has deep roots in Olmsted’s family. In fact, her late husband Richard was the grand-nephew of Frederick Olmsted, who is considered by many to be the father of American Landscape Architecture and was an early activist in the Conservation movement, having co-designed Central Park in New York City and the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, among other notable accomplishments.