The APR newsroom continues collaborating on the television show about business called “Alabama, Inc.” I profile entrepreneurs from our state to see how they got from here to there. This week, you’ll meet Fred Spicer, the head of Birmingham’s Botanical Gardens. His path to Alabama started in his home state of New Jersey…
If I say New Jersey, what comes to mind?
Frank Sinatra from Hoboken?
Steve Buscemi in HBO’s Boardwalk Empire? The show is set in Atlantic City at the turn of the century. I admit it’s a little more obscure unless you have cable.
How about something more comtemporary…like bridgegate?
That’s where New Jersey Governor Chris Christie became embroiled in a scandal where roads connected New Jersey and New York were closed down as the result of alleged political retaliation. Most of the cars stuck in the middle of all this had New Jersey license plates with the slogan "The Garden State." Fred Spicer says it’s true…
“New Jersey was the bread basket , if you will, for New York and Philadelphia markets," says Spicer. "There’s a lot of corn, a lot of dairy. Which most people don’t know.”
Spicer graduated from Rutgers with a degree in landscape architecture and taught there for fifteen years. Forget coming to Birmingham and running the city’s botanical garden. He admits he almost became a marine biologist…
“I very nearly worked with fish," he admits. "As I got into the meat and potatoes, I realized I wasn’t going to be a scientist. The math and the hardcore chemistry. “
He got along better with plants. After running his own landscaping business and taking care clients every day, he moved to Birmingham to run the Botanical Gardens. The sixty seven acre complex sits at the foot of Red Mountain. It’s home to twenty five individual gardens housing over twelve thousand different plants ranging from Japanese bonsai to a carrion plant that smells like road kill. The flies really like that one. Spicer says running the gardens isn’t all that different from running a landscaping company…
“I love systems and working with people," he says. " I love what the gardens does for the community and what the gardens is in the community, and that’s really important and I feel that the work I do now has a much broader reach.”
But, that job has its frustrations too. Mostly because of how people and plants get along, or in his opinion, fail to. The problem as Spicer sees it that that people relate better to animals. Animals and people walk around, eat many of the same things, and do many of the same things. Spicer says that leaves plants in the background going about their botanical business…
“Famous studies have been shown, that when you show someone a picture of beautiful forest ecosystem, with seventy or eighty different plants in it, and a deer," says Spicer. "And you say what’s in this picture, the person will say ‘oh, it’s a deer.’ "
And those people needing education include ordinary types, and then there’s Martha Stewart.
Yes, Fred Spicer once crossed swords with Stewart in a nice way. She brought Spicer onto her show for a segment about pruning trees.
Everything went fine…until…
“We actually had to stop in mid-taping because I corrected her," he says.
“Nobody beat you with a stick or anything, right?” I asked.
“No, she was really gracious about it," Spicer responded.
Really…
“And she thanked me, and she said ‘are you sure that’s what plant is?’ And I said ‘yes, I’m sure.’ And she said ‘okay,’ and we started again and she gave it the correct name," Spicer recalls.
And all along the way, Spicer never lost his New Jersey roots, pardon the pun. Alabama may be famous for its Chilton County peaches, but Spicer says his home state has some good stuff too…
“You move to Alabama and you hear about Sand Mountain tomatoes," says Spicer. "But, in Jersey, you have Jersey tomatoes. And it takes a bit of doing to surpass a Jersey tomato in August. It really does.”
Fred Spicer and I talk about he got from here to there on Alabama, Inc. this Wednesday at 10 p.m. on your local Alabama Public Television station.
