Portraits – Ellis Hollow

Individual plants or plant parts — sometimes with a bit (or a lot) of fiddling around.

Campus hydrangea collection
(N0vember 2024)

Hydrangeas are best known for their long-lasting, late-summer blooms. But this time of year (early Novermber), a few varieties also sport showy fall foliage.

The species symbolizes friendship, devotion, perseverance and understanding. And the Cornell campus is home to perhaps the largest hydrangea collection on the planet, thanks largely to alum and Syracuse nurseryman Jim Sollecito ’76. According to a recent profile in the online publication Cornellians, Sollecito has donated more than 1,000 plants to his alma mater, comprising 268 varieties.

The plants are distributed throughout campus, with some of the main plantings on and around the Ag Quad (including in Minns Garden and near Warren, Stocking, and Wing halls) and in the Cornell Botanic Gardens. Nina Bassuk ’74—a fellow CALS alum and friend of Sollecito who recently retired as director of the Urban Horticulture Institute—long taught a class titled Creating the Urban Eden, in which students planned and installed gardens on campus. Hundreds of her students have helped plant the hydrangeas over the years.

The first plants Sollecito donated can be found between Schoellkopf and the Fischell Band Center as part of a memorial to his daughter, Hannah Sollecito ’11, who passed away in 2016. Find maps and guide to varieties in the special collections section at Bassuk’s Woody Plant Database:.

Gourds
(September 28, 2024)