Episode 79 - Anthony (Tony) Aiello is Associate Director of Conservation, Plant Breeding, and Collections at Longwood Gardens.
Anthony Aiello is Associate Director of Conservation, Plant Breeding, and Collections at Longwood Gardens, where he participates in tree conservation, plant exploration and evaluation, and collections development. Previously he served for 22 years as the Gayle E. Maloney Director of Horticulture and Curator at the Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania, where he managed the Morris Arboretum’s historic gardens and living collections. These positions have allowed him to travel throughout the U.S., Europe, China, and Japan to find novel plants suitable for growing in the Delaware Valley. He has a Bachelor of Science in Biology with a concentration in Botany from Cornell University and a Master of Science in Horticulture from Purdue University and for many years chaired the North America-China Plant Exploration Consortium (NACPEC) and participated in the American Public Gardens Association taxonomy and plant collections committees.
Tony’s interests include temperate trees and shrubs – in particular oaks, maples, hollies, witch-hazels, and flowering cherries, as well as economic botany and the history of horticulture. He has written extensively about his travels, as well as his historic and plant interests.
