The conservation awards committee of the Garden Club of Virginia is proud to present the de Lacy Gray Memorial Medal for Conservation to Anna Galusha Aquino of the Boxwood Garden Club and Meg Turner of the James River Garden Club.
Anna attained degrees from the University of Virginia in environmental sciences and from Virginia Tech in horticulture. She received a master of landscape architecture from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. Her interests lie in birds, bugs and creating great places in which people live and work, while inspiring her design business and her volunteer projects at schools and parks. Anna enjoyed seven years teaching at George Washington University’s landscape design program in Richmond. She works with the James River Invasive Plant Task Force, helping to set policy, remove invasives and plant natives. With Boxwood, Anna designed and implemented its donation of a garden surrounding the playground at Peter Paul Development Center, a Richmond organization that provides after-school and seniors programming. This project won the 2019 GCV Common Wealth Award. Richmond’s tree commissioner, also a Boxwood member, asked Anna to design the Monument Avenue West street tree median planting in 2001. Anna has been active with Richmond’s Capital Trees and is currently chairman of its projects committee, helping to manage the public landscapes in sustainable and environmentally thoughtful ways.
Meg graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law and worked as an attorney before opening her landscape design firm. Over the past decade, Meg has been an effective leader in conservation efforts around the commonwealth. She has worked to create beneficial green spaces in urban areas, to eradicate invasive plants, to improve the health of the James River and to educate Virginians on the benefits of conservation. She has been a leader with Capital Trees and currently serves as its chairman. Her legal background has been an asset in securing key agreements with the city of Richmond and other entities that helped to make the program a reality. Meg is now developing the Capital Trees Low Line Green, an outdoor event space with environmental significance. It will feature bioretention gardens to treat the storm water runoff from Interstate Highway 95. Meg serves as a board member of the Virginia Urban Forest Council and is a volunteer with the James River Park System’s Invasive Plant Task Force.
