Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation: Program Accomplishments

Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation

The Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation is a cultural resource program of the National Park Service, Northeast Region (IR1) having origins in the late 1980s with formal establishment in the North Atlantic Regional Office (1973- 1995) in 1992. The Olmsted Center was established in response to the emerging field of cultural landscape preservation in the United States. Two years prior, in 1990, the North Atlantic Regional Office was one of the first in the National Park Service to establish a formal Cultural Landscape Program. Both developments reflect the agency’s desire to ensure that preserving cultural landscape resources was an integral component of historic preservation activity. The Olmsted Center was established as a center of excellence in cultural landscape preservation at the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site in Brookline, Massachusetts, in partnership with the North Atlantic Regional Cultural Landscape Program. The Olmsted Center’s mission was to provide urgent and immediate needs for the protection and maintenance of important cultural landscape resources in the North Atlantic Region. The establishment of the Olmsted Center at the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site continued the vision of F.L. Olmsted and his partners through a strong commitment to excellence and innovation in the field of cultural landscape preservation and maintenance that benefited both the North Atlantic Region and the National Park Service as a whole. Currently hosted within the National Park Service Northeast Region after the 1995 merger of the North Atlantic Region with the Mid-Atlantic Region, the center remains charged with the mission to strengthen the capacity of parks and historic properties to manage cultural landscapes more effectively as part of our national heritage. The early program provided support and services to parks of the northeastern United States, from Maine to Virginia. However, the expertise and project capacity of the center and its staff soon led to requests for project assistance nationwide. The Olmsted Center's work is organized based on three integrated program areas: landscape preservation planning, landscape preservation maintenance, and landscape preservation education and training: Preservation Planning: Includes research and analysis to help parks inventory, understand, and plan for management of cultural landscapes. Current and former landscape preservation planning program and project work have included: • Cultural Landscapes Inventory: A comprehensive inventory of all cultural landscapes in the National Park System. This element of the Olmsted Center program fulfills National Park Service regional responsibilities in compliance with Section 110 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. • Cultural Landscape Reports: The primary documents identified in agency policy as the primary documents guiding management and treatment of cultural landscapes. • Landscape Mapping and Enterprise Spatial Data: Geospatial (GIS) information derived from cultural landscape inventories that is uploaded to the NPS Geospatial Data Portal (NPS only) to make cultural landscape map data accessible to park staff, first responders and park stakeholders. • Plant Records Management: Assistance to parks in managing information about plants, used by park maintenance staff in caring for landscapes, by visiting scholars in conducting research, and by the public. • Landscape Preservation Planning Technical Assistance: Landscape architectural expertise provided to parks to assist with landscape improvements and compliance with the National Historic Preservation Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. Preservation Maintenance: Includes the stewardship of cultural landscapes through hands-on protection, stabilization, and repair. Current and former landscape preservation maintenance program and project work have included: • Arborist Incident Response Program: Regional teams of tree care professionals skilled in hazard tree assessment, arboriculture, and cultural landscape preservation who are deployed to respond to tree damage resulting from unanticipated events. • Facility Management Software System Program: Includes support for the development of the Maintained Landscape component of the National Park Service Facility Management Software System, which is used by park staff to track landscape features’ conditions, maintenance needs, and associated costs. • Historic Plant Preservation Program: A nursery program that conserves historically and scientifically important plants by propagating and cultivating genetically authentic replacements for deteriorated original specimens in park landscapes. • Landscape Maintenance Field Projects: Multi- Park landscape maintenance teams mobilized to assist parks with stabilizing and improving the condition of park cultural landscapes • Landscape Preservation Maintenance Technical Assistance: Preservation maintenance expertise provided to parks to assess and mitigate unanticipated impacts to park landscapes Education and Training: Includes internship programs and hands-on skills training introducing landscape documentation and preservation principles to future stewards. Current and former landscape preservation education and training program and project work have included: Arborist Training Program: A 18-month to 2-year program that provides park staff with education and field experience in tree care. The program introduces participants to fundamental arboricultural concepts and practices, such as chainsaw use and tree climbing; sequentially advancing participants through enhanced field skills such as rigging and condition assessment. The educational framework for the program parallels the training requirements identified by the International Society of Arboriculture Landscape Maintenance Skills Development Program: A program to strengthen landscape management knowledge and abilities. Participants take part in skills development field projects at national parks, attend workshops and webinars, and complete independent study assignments. They develop skills in a variety of landscape maintenance topics including turf care, ornamental tree and shrub care, planting, plant identification and selection, plant health care, sustainable landscape maintenance, integrated pest management, and repair of built landscape features such masonry walks, wood fences and stone walls. The Branching Out Youth Program: A program of sequenced career development and education opportunities in landscape management presented through workshops, internships, and hands-on experiences in park landscapes for young people between fifteen and twenty-four years of age. The Designing the Parks Internship Program: A program providing ten-week to yearlong internships in cultural landscape planning that introduce college students and recent graduates to National Park Service planning and design professions through real project work.

Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation: Program Accomplishments

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