Horticulturati: Virtual Flora & “Tree Lady” Margret Hofmann

On this episode, we discuss virtual foliage, time travel, and big trees. Colleen looks into how video games might play a role in curing plant blindness, and Leah shines a light on the remarkable life and legacy of Margret Hofmann (1925-2012), whose 1970s “Think Trees” campaign introduced Austinites to a majestic urban forest hidden in plain sight. As a City Council member, Hoffman advocated for the preservation of heritage trees, spearheading a contest to locate our city’s biggest and oldest trees, and laying the foundation for our city’s tree-protection ordinances. 

Mentioned in this episode: 

The Greenberg Turkey plant explosion; “A Video Game Garden: The Delights of Virtual Botany” (The Guardian); Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture; Video Game Foliage (Tumblr); the iNaturalist app; Myst; Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut; A Key To Survival by Margret Hofmann; 

The 1976 Tree Registry; Hofmann’s archive at the Austin History Center; The Secret Life of Plants documentary; Photo by Alan Pogue of Hofmann in 1975 with a historical marker at the site of a 700-year-old live oak at I-35 and Braker Lane (see the tree on Google Street View)