I have received news that NARGS member Frank Cabot has died at age 86, on Saturday, November 19, 2011. Frank was the founder of The Garden Conservancy in 1989 and was involved in numerous horticultural organizations.

Frank was NARGS treasurer from 1977-1984 and the co-organizer of the Society's 50th anniversary meeting in Asheville in 1984. He was supporter of many NARGS activities, including the Norman Singer Endowment Fund and donor to NARGS of copies of " The Caucasus and Its Flowers" by Vojtech Holubec.Frank was a speaker at NARGS Study Weekends and at local chapters.

Bill Noble, Director of Preservation for The Garden Conservancy, has provided the following obituary.

CABOT, Francis Higginson of Loudon, New Hampshire and La Malbaie, Quebec died peacefully at home after a long illness on November 19, 2011. He was 86. Born in New York City on August 6, 1925, graduate of St. Bernard’s and Groton Schools and Harvard College class of 1949 where he was a founder of the Krokodiloes, he served in Europe and the Far East during WWII with the Signal Corps.

He worked initially for Stone & Webster Inc. and subsequently as a venture capitalist in New York. His overriding interest in horticulture consumed his later years when he was active in the American Rock Garden Society, the Friends of Horticulture at Wave Hill, The New York Botanical Garden, and the Garden Conservancy, which he founded in 1989.

During these years, with his wife Anne, he created Stonecrop Gardens, a public garden for plant enthusiasts in Cold Spring, NY, founded the Aberglasney Restoration Trust to rescue and restore a 16th century garden in Carmarthenshire, Wales, and enlarged his parents’ garden in La Malbaie, Quebec into what has been described as the most aesthetically satisfying and horticulturally exciting landscape experience in North America.

His book, The Greater Perfection, which received The Council of Botanical and Horticultural Libraries 2003 Literature Award, was described as “one of the best books ever written about the making of a garden by its creator” - by The Oxford Companion to the Garden (2006). He was the recipient of numerous awards from horticultural societies, including the Gold Veitch Memorial Award of the Royal Horticultural Society.

He was also named a Chevalier of the Order of Quebec as well as a Member of the Order of Canada in recognition of his efforts, through his family’s Quatre Vents Foundation, to preserve the patrimony of Charlevoix County, Quebec. He is survived by his wife of over 62 years, Anne Perkins Cabot; by three children: Colin and wife Paula of Loudon, NH; Currie and husband Thomas A. Barron of Boulder CO, and Marianne and husband James S. Welch of Prospect, Kentucky; by nine grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

Funeral services will be private. A memorial celebration will be held in the garden of Les Quatre Vents for family and friends in 2012 at a date coinciding with the inception of spring and the peak of the primula moment. Contributions may be made to The Garden Conservancy, PO Box 219 or the Quatre Vents Foundation, PO Box 222, both at Cold Spring, New York 10516, or to the charity of your choice.

Bobby Ward