Rebecca McMackin

Rebecca McMackin is an ecologically obsessed horticulturist and garden designer. She lives in the woods of Connecticut, writing, lecturing, and designing the occasional garden.

Rebecca is the Arboretum Curator at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, where she cares for one of the best tree collections in NYC, restores historic grave sites, and welcomes ecological functionality back to 400 acres of urban greenspace. She was a Harvard Loeb Fellow in 2023, studying ecological design, the history of native plant movements, and science communication. She is a public servant, dedicated to bringing beauty and biodiversity to all corners of our cities. Her new garden for the Brooklyn Museum shows that ecological gardens can thrive in even the busiest public spaces. And, amazingly, she is the recipient of the 2023 Pollinator Advocacy Award from Pollinator Partnership.

Prior to all this, Rebecca spent a decade as Director of Horticulture of Brooklyn Bridge Park, where she managed 85 acres of diverse parkland organically and with an eye towards habitat creation for birds, butterflies, and soil microorganisms. Their research into cultivating urban biodiversity and ethical management strategies has influenced thousands of people and entire urban parks systems to adopt similar approaches.

In her imaginary free time, Rebecca lectures and writes about garden politics, landscape management, and pollination ecology. She was VP of the Metro Hort Group in NY and has served on the boards of the Ecological Landscape Alliance and the Torrey Botanical Society. She taught many classes at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the New York Botanical Garden. Her writing has been published in the New York Times, the Landscape Institute, and the Ecological Landscape Alliance. Her work has been featured on PBS’s Garden Smart, Margaret Roach’s A Way to Garden, and Jennifer Jewel’s Cultivating Place.

Rebecca holds a M.Sc. in Biology from the University of Victoria, and a M.Sc. in Landscape Design from Columbia University. She lives with her husband, arborist extraordinaire, Christopher Roddick, their 9 year old, and rescue dog, Winterberry.