The Crosby Arboretum
Picayune's native plant paradise is a revolutionary showcase of what happens when natural habitat meets innovative landscape design
“We like to say we’re locally obscure and nationally famous,” Pat Drackett, Director of the Crosby Arboretum, said of the 104-acre plant preserve in Picayune, Mississippi. That national recognition includes an American Society of Landscape Architecture honor award for the Arboretum’s design—which upon first glance appears to consist of meandering trails through incidental forest and pasture, but is in reality a meticulously curated native-plant conservatory. And while national botanists and conservationists flock to this outdoor classroom each year, it’s surprising how little the “locals” know about Crosby.
“People see it as just a bunch of paths on a pretty piece of property, but the reason it's a pretty piece of property is the master plan, which focuses on keeping things natural and native,” Drackett said. The property just off I-59 in Picayune serves not only to preserve, protect, and display the precious ecosystem of the Pearl River Drainage Basin, but to educate the public about the unique plant species native to South Mississippi and Louisiana. Those plants include over three hundred species of indigenous trees, shrubs, wildflowers, and grasses—many of them rare, threatened, or endangered. Visitors to the property will discover several native pitcher plant bogs, as well as many edible and medicinal plant varieties.
History of Crosby Arboretum
The Crosby Arboretum was first established in the early 1980s as a living memorial to the late L.O. Crosby, Jr, the longtime owner and general manager of Crosby Forest Products Company in Picayune who possessed a deep love of nature and wildlife. After his death in 1978, the Crosby family began developing what was then the family strawberry plantation into an interpretive center for native plants. With the help and collaboration of Louisiana State University and Mississippi State University, they ultimately dedicated sixty-four acres of exhibits educating on indigenous plant communities—a revolutionary approach to arboretum planning that balanced natural habitat and planned design to celebrate local native flora by preserving, enhancing, and even re-creating regional ecosystems.
[Read about the plans for Burden Museum & Gardens's new Welcome Center in Baton Rouge, here.]
Over the years, agriculture departments at MSU and LSU continued to offer input on landscape design and ecosystem development, and in 1986 the arboretum was dedicated to public use. The property is now owned and operated by MSU and is a vital part of The Mississippi Gulf Coast National Heritage Area.
While the Arboretum as a whole consists of 104 acres, only sixty-four are currently open to the public—where native plants are displayed in three habitat exhibits, including: savanna, woodland, and aquatic. In addition, the MSU Extension Service maintains seven hundred associated acres for long-term research under the Crosby umbrella.
"“People see it as just a bunch of paths on a pretty piece of property, but the reason it's a pretty piece of property is the master plan, which focuses on keeping things natural and native,” —Pat Drackett
“It’s amazing to think of the people who had the vision for this property but never got to see it completed,” Drackett said. “People like former directors, Bob Brzuszek and Edward Blake, and even the Crosby family, had the vision for something that had never been done before. And now we have the first fully realized, ecologically designed arboretum in the United States right here in Picayune.”
Experiencing Crosby Arboretum
Perched alongside Piney Woods Lake—which itself features native water plants in their natural setting, the Arboretum’s most iconic man-made structure is Pinecote Pavilion. Designed by award-winning architect E. Fay Jones, of Fayetteville, Arkansas, the dramatic open-air structure is the darling of many a Mississippi tourism publication and has been the setting of weddings, classes, conferences, artistic performance, social gatherings, and Crosby’s annual Strawberries and Cream Festival.
Crosby’s annual calendar is packed with educational programs, including plant ID classes taught by professors from MSU, LSU, and elsewhere. Event Coordinator Barbara Medlock frequently organizes recreational opportunities to draw adults and kids to the site—including courses in jewelry making, pine-needle basket weaving, beekeeping, glassblowing, composting, eco-friendly gardening, and blacksmith and metalworking. There’s yoga in the pavilion, field day events for area schools and home school groups, and plant walks with renowned regional botanists such as Dr. Charles Allen, Dr. Wayne Morris, and Heather Sullivan of the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science.
The Piney Woods Heritage Festival each February features exhibits and demonstrations of traditional skills once practiced in this area such as blacksmithing, quilting, spinning, and basket-making, with live musical performances, speakers, and more. And the annual BugFest each October encompasses two days of hands-on learning about the environment, ecosystems, and wildlife of Mississippi’s Piney Woods Region with insect-related displays, interactive exhibits, games, and crafts.
“We talk about our early influences around here a lot, each sharing what first got us interested in gardening or botany,” Drackett said. “We want this to be a place where a child, or even an adult, can come and have a spark ignited in them. Maybe they just come here to learn about jewelry making or basket weaving, but they leave with lessons in becoming better stewards of the plants and habitat of South Mississippi and Louisiana.”
Membership to Crosby Arboretum starts at $35 for non-students and includes membership in the American Horticultural Society’s Reciprocal Admissions Program, with free or reduced admission at 345 partner gardens across North America. Membership also comes with borrowing privileges at the arboretum’s library of books on native plant gardening, wildflowers, landscape design, plant foraging, medicinal plants, ethnobotany, “household” botany, and more. And the arboretum gift shop offers nature-based items from local artisans and operates a year-round native plant sale.