Meet Emily Conn | Manager of Plant Records & Horticulture, Lincoln Park Zoo

Emily Conn is a vibrant and articulate horticulture professional whose passion for the field is truly inspiring. They speak about their work with a contagious enthusiasm. We've gotten to know Emily over the past couple of years through the intelligent questions they ask about plant data and, most recently, from their participation in the IrisBG Phenology Working Group. In the fall of 2024, Emily generously showed me around Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo, sharing stories and anecdotes linking the zoo's history, animals, and plants with the local ecology and community. Please enjoy learning about Emily Conn and their professional journey.

Can you share a few of your proudest/ most meaningful achievements in your horticulture career so far?  When I joined the Horticulture team at the Lincoln Park Zoo, one of my first accomplishments was achieving Level 3 Arboretum Accreditation Status under the ArbNet accreditation scheme. After completing my training in Plant Records and Curation, my top career goal was to experience the accreditation process- and I achieved it within 6 months of starting at the Zoo! Within my first year, we also achieved Botanic Garden accreditation through Botanical Gardens Conservation International (BGCI). That process taught me so much about the different types of conservation work and collaboration here at the Zoo, with our community partners throughout Chicago and abroad.

When did you know you wanted a career in Horticulture? In 2017, I moved to Philadelphia, and the first meaningful community I discovered was a specialist houseplant group. This interest led me to apply for the former Plant Propagation Internship at the Morris Arboretum, where I immediately felt like I had found my dream career and had the opportunity to take Plant Identification and Public Garden Management classes at the University of Pennsylvania. I worked as a research assistant,
propagator, ornamental horticulturist, and landscaper on the side all while pursuing a more formal education in Plant Records and Curation at Longwood Gardens.

Which garden tool/aid could you not live without? The pole saw and long-reach pruners! In some of our conservatory spaces, we have tropical trees growing in hard-to-reach spaces where using a ladder isn’t feasible. We can get a lot of work done quickly with these two simple tools!

Has working at a zoo changed how you think about plants? If so, how?
Yes, it has! Working at a zoo that sees over 3 million visitors per year, I’ve learned to interpret our historic canopy and intentionally designed landscape through the eyes of visitors who might not have a background in botany. Most people come to see the animals and I want them to appreciate the plants, too!

Chirinko Garden, on the north side of the Rhino exhibits. Photo cred: Elliot Foley.

When I look at a garden bed surrounding animal habitats, I see the emergence of rich and playful narratives – like plant names that reference animals (Nepeta cultivars, ‘Kitten Around’ & ‘Picture Purr-fect' planted in front of the Lion habitat; Miscanthus ‘Little Zebra’ in our mixed-species savannah yard with zebras and giraffes; or Thuja ‘Art Boe’ North Pole® in our Tundra gardens at the polar bear habitat).

Any remarkable animal stories you would like to share?
The Horticulture team starts work early in the morning, and I’ve come to love the way that different animals greet the dawn. When the sun rises, the lion pride begins to roar which is quite cacophonous! A short distance away, the gibbons begin their sunrise song- and it truly sounds like a melody or a duet. The gibbon song is one of my favorite things to hear at sunrise.

Is there someone in the botany or horticulture world you look to for inspiration?
Not a day goes by that I don’t think fondly of my early mentors in this field! My advisors from my first internship at the Morris Arboretum had a huge impact on my career trajectory. Tony Aiello encouraged me to pursue my interest in Curation and was my first taxonomic gap analysis advisor; Shelley Dillard ensured I had the tools and resources to be a thoughtful scientist. I now use her teaching methods with my current student programs; and Elinor Goff matched my ardent enthusiasm for Plant Records, giving me an introduction to botanical databases. I consider them all friends, and I owe it all to these mentors for encouraging me to pursue my passions and teaching me so much in my first foray into botany!

Do you have a favorite IrisBG function? I frequently use customizable themes and attributes to connect plants on Garden Explorer to our animal-based missions at the zoo, such as monarch butterfly migration, food forests for migratory birds, etc., but building Tours is one of my all-time favorite functions!

Is there a particular  horticulture-related event that you have learned a valuable lesson from?
This summer I had my first experience conducting a Floristic Quality Assessment (FQA) of our 14-acre restored prairie and black oak savanna, which we call the Nature Boardwalk. An FQA is a survey technique for measuring the composition of plant communities and the associated ecological condition of the site, which then assigns a coefficient and ranking system to native plants and the overall condition of the research site. I had never heard of such a survey before, and I felt somewhat uncomfortable diving in headfirst with no colleagues to guide me- but it ended up being a really engaging and rigorous learning experience. I came away from the study feeling like I had become best friends with the prairie! I think this experience taught me how to understand an unfamiliar landscape on a very detailed level, and I feel much more confident in my abilities as a researcher and recorder. In my opinion, the most valuable lesson is to form a personal connection to the landscapes you work with.

The Nature Boardwalk at Lincoln Park Zoo. Image courtesy of Lincoln Park Zoo.

Any films, podcasts, or books that you recommend?
I take a lot of inspiration from the manual Restoring the Tall Grass Prairie by Shirley Foster. I’m a huge fan of Robin Wall Kimmerer and would also recommend her books Gathering Moss, and The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World. As a Chicagoan, I feel obligated to recommend the podcast Crime Pays But Botany Doesn’t (hosted by my favorite Chicago celebrity, Joey Santore) for those with a crass sense of humor and an open mind!