LIHU‘E — Charles (“Chipper”) Wichman, Jr., president of the National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG) in Kalaheo, has been named the 2020 recipient of the American Horticultural Society’s (AHS) Professional Award, which is given to a public garden administrator whose achievements throughout his or her career have cultivated widespread interest in horticulture.
LIHU‘E — Charles (“Chipper”) Wichman, Jr., president of the National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG) in Kalaheo, has been named the 2020 recipient of the American Horticultural Society’s (AHS) Professional Award, which is given to a public garden administrator whose achievements throughout his or her career have cultivated widespread interest in horticulture.
The accolade is one of the Great American Gardeners Awards that the AHS presents annually to individuals, organizations, and businesses that represent the best in American gardening. Each of the recipients has contributed significantly to fields such as scientific research, garden communication, landscape design, youth gardening, and conservation.
A leading authority in the discovery and conservation of tropical plants, Wichman has spent more than 40 years with the NTBG, growing from an apprentice gardener back in the mid-1970s into his executive leadership role in the early 2000s. Over the course of his career, Wichman has helped discover or rediscover over a dozen previously unknown plant species; led a successful conservation initiative at Limahuli Valley before donating the land to NTBG; raised NTBG’s profile as an influential conservation, research, and education center; helped found the International Center for Tropical Botany at Florida International University; and secured Hawai‘i as the location of the 2016 World Conservation Congress.
In 2018, Wichman was awarded The Garden Club of America’s Medal of Honor for outstanding service to horticulture. Fluent in Hawaiian and Hawaiian Pidgin English, Wichman routinely gives talks on tropical plant conservation.
Because of the pandemic, this year’s Great American Gardeners Awards ceremony, originally scheduled for June 18, had to be cancelled. Instead, AHS will be honoring the award winners from all around the country by way of video acceptance speeches that will be released on our website and social media starting in mid-June. For full descriptions of each award and brief biographies of this year’s recipients, please visit our 2020 Award Winners.
Founded in 1922, the American Horticultural Society is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization committed to modeling, educating about, and advocating for earth-friendly and sustainable gardening practices. Our mission is to share with all Americans the critical role of plants, gardens, and green spaces in creating healthy, livable communities and a sustainable planet. Since 1973, we have been headquartered at River Farm, part of George Washington’s original land holdings on a 25-acre site composed of gardens, meadows, and woodlands along the Potomac River in the Mount Vernon section of Fairfax County. To learn more, visit https://ahsgardening.org.
