Peter Olin, who led Minnesota Landscape Arboretum for 24 years, dies at 87

Former University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum Director Peter Olin passed away Monday, June 30, in St. Paul. Olin served as the Arboretum’s third director for nearly 24 years, from 1984 to 2008. He leaves behind a tremendous legacy as a builder and educator.

He lived in Falcon Heights and was 87.

Olin led two campus plans, oversaw extensive land acquisition and built out many of the Arboretum’s signature garden spaces. Located in Chaska, the Arboretum today includes core display gardens, the Japanese Garden, the Dayton Wildflower Garden and more. The Sensory Garden was created during his tenure with a focus on accessibility, as was a model therapeutic horticulture program.

In addition to his responsibilities developing gardens, Olin was heavily involved in building the Arboretum’s focus on developing new plant varieties that can be grown in cold-weather climates across the world. He worked to build a new research building, greenhouse and enology lab at the Horticultural Research Center at the Arboretum. He partnered with Dr. Susan Galatowitsch to establish the Spring Peeper Meadow Restoration, one of the finest examples of a complete meadow restoration in the country.

Olin was instrumental in expanding the Arboretum’s reach: growing membership, visitorship and educational programming for children and adults. Staff size quadrupled during his tenure, growing from 50 to 200 staff members during the peak summer months. The 45,000-square-foot Oswald Visitor Center opened during Olin’s directorship, providing services and education for the growing number of people who visited each year. He worked with teams to develop innovative forms of outreach, including the Plantmobile – which brings plants to school classes that may not be able to take a bus trip to the Arboretum. The Urban Gardens outreach program also began during his time at the Arboretum, teaching children in Minneapolis about gardening and the environment.

He served as a faculty member in the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences at the University of Minnesota. He was honored as president of the Minnesota Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects and the National Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture, a fellow with the American Society of Landscape Architects, and numerous awards for garden associations and clubs, including the Minnesota Nursery and Landscape Association Hall of Fame.

Olin received a bachelor’s degree in landscape design and ornamental horticulture from Cornell University in 1961 and a master’s degree in landscape architecture from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1971.

In lieu of flowers, memorials are preferred to the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum or Olivet Congregational Church.

A celebration of life is being planned at the Arboretum. Funeral arrangements are pending.