Gardens on Spring Creek will see new leadership as director moves on after 15 years

When Michelle Provaznik was younger, working a job in gardens, or even the realm of gardening, wasn’t really on her mind. It wasn’t something she’d dreamt of from a young age or a career track that ran in her family.

In fact, she didn’t even know much about gardening for a large part of her life.

She remembered her grandparents' garden that helped feed her family in the 1970s, but that was the extent of her knowledge until she moved to Arlington, Virginia, where she had a community garden. After that, she moved to Colorado Springs and had a garden of her own she enjoyed; at that point, she even toyed around with becoming a Master Gardener.

But she moved to California, upending the Master Gardener plan. Once she arrived in the Bay Area, however, she enrolled in a horticulture program at a local community college that would more or less change the trajectory of her life.

“I fell in love,” she said. “I remember coming home and looking at my husband going, ‘This is what I want to do.’ ”

Shortly after arriving in Fort Collins in 2001, a fresh graduate of her horticultural program, she began what would become her two-decade involvement with The Gardens on Spring Creek. She started as a member of the Friends of the Gardens, the nonprofit side of the gardens, and served there for several years before becoming president of the board. All the while, she was operating her own horticultural business on the side.

But in 2008, after Jim Clark, the founder and then-executive director of the Gardens, announced he was leaving, Provaznik stepped into the role — one she would stay in for almost 15 years before leaving this fall.

And back then, it wasn’t an easy time to be leading the Gardens.

“The Gardens were on rocky ground at that time. People weren’t necessarily understanding what it could be,” Provaznik said, thinking back on her early days at the Gardens. “My charge from (City) Council … was you need to increase attendance and increase revenue, which made total sense … but it’s also hard to do.”

In her nearly 15 years in the role, Provaznik grew the Gardens from just a children’s garden and half a visitors center to a full visitors center and gift shop, a Butterfly House, the Everitt Pavilion and Great Lawn, and five acres of new gardens. She oversaw the completion of the master plan for the Gardens, which was created in 2000 before the Gardens even opened. But she recognizes the gardens are never done and she’s sure there’s more to come for Fort Collins.

And all these years later, after her endless days of fundraising and planning and growth to build the Gardens into what they are, she described them not as “rocky ground,” but as a “treasure” with so much more space for improvement.

There are close to 100,000 visitors each year now, Provaznik said, which made her realize that she’ll “never understand the whole ripple effect” of her work and how many people it’s impacted. But she hopes that number grows as people in the community continue to find the Gardens.

The community gardens and outreach program are what she's most proud of, emphasizing that the Gardens, to her, most represents community building and the relationships possible in Fort Collins.

“I think that it's just a wonderful resource for people in our community. Whether you need a place to connect to nature, a place for respite, a place to come together as a community, it serves many different roles,” Provaznik said.

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Now after all those years and all those gardens built, Provaznik has determined it’s time to move on.

But she isn’t leaving the garden world.

Earlier this year, she began looking for her next steps, checking jobs at other public gardens, but “things just weren’t lining up.” It was on vacation in Italy when she saw the posting for chief executive officer of the American Public Gardens Association — which has more than 600 gardens as members, many of which remind her of Fort Collins — and she decided to apply.

“I've taken our gardens here in Fort Collins and grown and advocated for them and done all the things to make it this beautiful, special place in our community,” she said. “And the thought of being able to help gardens all around the country do the same thing was super exciting to me.”

Now she has the chance. On Nov. 1, Provaznik began her role leading the APGA, and while she’s still figuring it out, it’s off to a good start.

From growing thousands of pounds of produce that’s donated back to communities to educating kids across the country about gardening, her new role touches on all aspects of public gardens that Provaznik holds near and dear.

“I can't wait to figure out what those impacts are and be able to tell those stories to all the powers that be so that they understand how important gardens are to our communities, to our country and beyond,” she said.

Jim McDonald, director of cultural services at the city who oversaw Provaznik for the last four years, said he’s “really excited” to watch her in her new role and see the impact she can have on so many member gardens.

“When you see the success the Gardens has had and what an amazing community asset it's grown into, that's Michelle's leadership, with support from the community at large,” McDonald said. He said he’d describe her as proactive in looking for opportunities to improve and as having a strong vision she works hard to meet.

Looking ahead, her days will be filled with traveling to member gardens for meetings, symposiums and more and working with smaller gardens to help them grow as they see fit, something that reminds her of early days at Gardens on Spring Creek.

“I'd say 70% to 75% of (the gardens) have budgets under a million dollars, so they're small gardens — it's what I came from, I know that world and I'm excited … that I can help and also amplify our collective voices of all the gardens in association because we have some amazing gardens doing some amazing things and really advocating for our public horticulture industry,” Provaznik said.

In terms of what Provaznik’s departure means for the Gardens — especially heading into the Garden of Lights season —McDonald said hopefully not much. He said the team they have now is experienced and knows how to run the holiday events smoothly, so he’s not too worried and is confident they’ll be as popular as ever.

The Garden of Lights, the Gardens at Spring Creek’s annual holiday event, runs from Dec. 9 through Dec. 24.

The city has named Ashley Krueger, former education coordinator at the Gardens, interim director of the Gardens. McDonald expects the permanent job opening will be posted in January for a national search.

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Molly Bohannon covers Fort Collins and Colorado State University for the Coloradoan. Follow her on Twitter @molboha or contact her at mbohannon@coloradoan.com. Support her work and that of other Coloradoan journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Gardens on Spring Creek director Michelle Provaznik moves on