Each December, homes across the country glow with the familiar shape of the Christmas tree - its branches strung with lights, ornaments, and memory. Though today the evergreen has become a universal symbol of the winter holidays, its story stretches far beyond modern celebration and reaches deeply into the history of horticulture. It's a story Liberty Hyde Bailey himself would've recognized, both as a botanist and as a scholar of the cultural meaning of plants. Long before t

We have already had our first blanket of snow here in South Haven, with our gardens resting beneath. But plenty of life still remains, deer nestle their noses in the shrubs that's left, squirrels are still adventuring through the barren trees getting ready for their hibernation, and the delicate tracks in our woods from other small creatures. What was once rustled with leaves and summer insects now fills with wingbeats and soft calls. It is a season that slows the world down

This Christmas, give a gift that grows - a Liberty Hyde Bailey Museum & Gardens membership. Admission to the museum is always free, but membership offers something far greater: the joy of reciprocity and the satisfaction of supporting a living legacy. A membership connects your loved ones to a nationwide community of gardens, museums, and nature centers. Through partnerships with the American Horticultural Society (AHS), the Association of Nature Center Administrators (ANCA),

About 150 years ago, a young Liberty Hyde Bailey from South Haven, Michigan, was showing curiosity in the world around him. Fascinated with nature, he had been reading the work of a noted botanist at Michigan Agricultural College (now known as Michigan State University - Professor William James Beal. Bailey admired the professor's expirements with seeds, gardens, and his encouragement towards students to learn from living plants rather than from books alone. Rather than study