A Gift to the Garden and a Memorial to a Beloved Father

We have a new neighbor and friend here at Berkshire Botanical Garden. Scott Lambert, along with his five siblings, has donated 3.46 acres to us.

The gift, which became official in September, originally was intended to honor the Lamberts’ father. Now, it memorializes him.

William Lambert, the longtime landscape architect at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, died March 3rd at the age of 90.

“Our dad had such a rich horticultural and landscape background, and this just seemed like the most appropriate way to honor his legacy,” said Scott, who moved to Stockbridge in 2019 and lives in a new house built just to the south of the meadow, on Westdale Road.

The land, a long, rectangular stretch of meadow along Route 102, just west of BBG, will remain a beautiful piece of protected greenway at the town’s western edge.

Since moving to town, Scott has developed a deep appreciation for BBG. While his father, who lived on Cape Cod, never had the opportunity to visit us, Scott, an avid photographer, had put together numerous virtual tours of the Garden to show his father.

“I would show him on his TV screen using my phone,” Scott said. “He absolutely loved the Garden.”

A lifetime gardener who took particular care to create bountiful landscapes and habitat conducive to native fauna, the late William Lambert earned undergraduate and graduate degrees at UMass-

Amherst in landscape architecture, with concentrations in horticulture and botany.

Later, as a staff member, he particularly was proud of playing a
lead role in supporting access to the many buildings on the UMass campus for those with disabilities, and he took particular care to ensure the campus was in full bloom at graduation time.

“We grew up with the most amazing flower and vegetable gardens,” recalled Scott. “My dad was in the garden
almost 24/7. The things he did were just incredible. He was famous for dressing in the wackiest clothes you ever saw when he worked outside. He was a child of the Depression, so he just wore clothes until they practically fell off his body.”

With his father’s advice, Scott has planted more than 2,500 plants and shrubs on his Stockbridge property.
The plantings have been done with a particular eye toward creating habitat for native species, including songbirds.

With the land donation, he said, “We’re just paying it forward.”