Horticulture Staff Spotlight
Brian LeDoux - Exhibit Designer
30 years at Missouri Botanical Garden
before retiring in August 2005
Each year, the holiday season seems to start a little earlier in the department stores. Well, imagine planning for the holiday season that is one or two years from now! That is exactly what Brian LeDoux did when he invented themes for upcoming Holiday and Orchid Shows. He joked that he was never in the current season and frequently not in the current year!
Brian was responsible for designing Missouri Botanical Garden's annual Holiday Shows and annual Orchid Shows. He visualized and began to design them more than a year in advance. Brian was always on the lookout for show theme ideas. Ideas came from anybody and anywhere, even from nightmares, according to Brian!
With a theme in mind, he ordered plants and designed and built props with the help of one assistant and several volunteers. There was always something interesting happening in Brian's work area. Staff members who wandered through might see a giant insect, a scaled down biplane, painted animal or human cutouts, frosty or mossy mannequins, or any number of surprises.
For approximately 3 weeks prior to the first day of each show, dozens of props and thousands of plants were installed under Brian's watchful supervision. The empty Orthwein Floral Hall is transformed into a different world. Visitors enter a tropical jungle, a formal Victorian garden, a world of giant toys, or some other fantastic locale.
The Floral Display department also maintains the Maritz atrium in the Ridgway entrance building and the plants inside the president's residence.
Brian received a Bachelor of Science degree in Education with an emphasis in Art from Northeast Missouri State University, now Truman University. The next nine years were spent teaching art to kindergarten through high school students. Brian continued his art-inspired career by joining Missouri Botanical Garden in 1975. In 1979, Brian met his future wife, the Garden's orchid grower at the time. The two have since started their own orchid business called "Windy Hill Gardens". Brian unwinds by sailing his Compac Yacht 16 at Carlyle Lake in Illinois.
When asked about his long career here at the Garden, Brian quips, “Time flies when you're having fun!” The Garden was lucky to benefit from Brian's “fun” and creativity.
Pat Scace takes Brian's place as exhibit designer. She worked as Brian's assistant from 1990 to 1995, after which she started her own business and worked as a freelance floral designer.