May Flowers at the Met Cloisters Gardens with Marc Montefusco, Managing Horticulturist

Budding spring gardens and May flowers inspired our host Sandra Hindman to sit down with Marc Montefusco, the Managing Horticulturist of the Medieval Gardens at the Met Cloisters. In today’s conversation, they discuss the three gardens at the Cloisters (the Cuxa Cloister garden, the Bonnefont Cloister garden, and the Trie Cloister garden) the history of the gardens as an integral element of the Met Cloisters design, and the history of medieval gardening and medieval flora. Each garden’s plantings are based on information found in documents and works of art from the Middle Ages, and Marc Montefusco discusses the symbolic and scientific properties of plants, as well as the oft shifting fashion of cultured plants–– from medicinal use to revered flower and back to common weed. 

But how does one become a horticulturist at the Met? Find out answers to all of these topics and more in today’s episode!