Down a slight hill towards the West entrance of the W.B. Young Building sits a unique tree. Recently planted and already blending into the landscape, many UConn students, faculty, and staff probably walk right by without registering the young tree.
But rooted in this addition to UConn’s nationally accredited arboretum is a “forever friendship” between two emeriti faculty members, their families, and the University that served as the backdrop for much of their lives.
Sidney and Florence, Rudy and Joy
If you are at all familiar with the fields of horticulture or landscape architecture, the names Sidney Waxman and Rudy Favretti are well known to you. Both men are considered to be pioneers in their respective fields, and both called the University of Connecticut home for their professional pursuits.
They were also great friends since their graduate school days at Cornell University, where they graduated in the mid 1950s.
Sidney Waxman, born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1923, is best known for creating nearly 40 new types of dwarf conifers and trees, including the one outside the Young Building.
“This tree is a symbol of the strong friendship between Sidney, his wife Florence, Rudy, and myself,” says Joy P. Favretti, Rudy Favretti’s widow. “We had known each other at Cornell. Later when we had all gotten married and moved to Connecticut, we would watch each other’s children when they were small, and they played together here in Storrs. Rudy and Sidney appreciated each other’s work. It really was a forever friendship in so many ways.”
Waxman founded UConn’s experimental plant nursery, where he focused much of his research on developing new and interesting plants from witches’ brooms. These are abnormalities in a tree or woody plant where a cluster of shoots develop at a single point. Sometimes caused by fungus or other pathogens, the resulting deformities can look like a witch’s broom or a bird’s nest.
Waxman and his wife Florence often joined forces to collect samples as they traveled around Eastern Connecticut and the New England region.
“Florence was great at spotting the witches’ brooms,” says Joy Favretti. “Sid would hike into the woods and shoot them down with his rifle. Eventually he had to use other methods and have a crew climb up and cut them down.”
Many of Waxman’s specimens can be viewed as part of a special collection within UConn’s campus-wide arboretum.
A New Branch in UConn’s Family Tree
To say that the young tree developed by Waxman that sits outside the Young Building is special may be an understatement.
“Sid’s plants are harder and harder to find commercially, so preserving this specimen where the public can enjoy it is really special,” says Sean Vasington, University landscape architect and director of site planning with University Planning, Design & Construction.
In fact, this tree may be one of the last that Waxman ever created.
After Waxman’s death in 2005, his son Paul brought the one-of-a-kind specimen to the Favrettis, in accordance with his father’s wishes.
“When Paul brought the tree, it was very meaningful,” says Joy Favretti. “He told us that it originated from a witches’ broom Rudy had identified.”
With a nod to the Favrettis’ 60-plus-year romance and based on his admiration for Rudy’s immense contributions to landscape design, Waxman had named the cultivar “Rudy’s Joy.”
Beyond its sentimental story, there’s a lot that makes the little tree special from a horticultural perspective too.
The witches’ broom discovered on a Norway Maple was grafted onto a Sugar Maple, New England’s native maple. The tree is well known for its fall colors and sweet syrup. Mark Brand, the chair of UConn’s arboretum and professor of horticulture and plant breeding, is confident the tree won’t reproduce since it doesn’t seem to produce flowers or fruit.
“Sidney was smart,” says Joy Favretti. “He recognized there was a need for lower growing foundation plants, as many of the new homes being built at the time were only one story or a story and a half. The Connecticut nursery industry and many others were pleased to make them available in their nurseries.”
While there are still lots of questions surrounding what “Rudy’s Joy” will become, it is likely to be very tall, about 50 feet, and round.
Part of this uncertainty was by design. Waxman often incorporated fungus strains into his new species, which can cause unique forms to develop. For instance, “Rudy’s Joy” has unique branching and is of an unusual shape.
“Its globose form and single stem should be very distinctive as the tree matures, especially during the fall when its foliage will turn bright yellow,” says Vasington.
“It’s going to be notable and highly unusual, that is one thing we know for sure,” says Greg Anderson, professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology, member of the UConn Arboretum, and friend of the Favrettis.
For the Love of the Landscape
Along with reflecting the genius of Waxman’s experiments, as it grows, “Rudy’s Joy” will be a tangible monument to the contributions Rudy Favretti made to UConn, the College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources (CAHNR), and the field of landscape architecture around the globe.
Born in 1932 in Mystic, Connecticut to Italian immigrant parents, Favretti’s UConn career began as an undergrad who, in 1955, was hired as an Extension garden specialist. He would later become a professor of landscape architecture and develop UConn’s program, which was nationally accredited with his participation, guidance, and support, nearly 10 years after his departure from UConn.
“Rudy Favretti’s contributions within our field are renowned and immeasurable, but he is also a big part of UConn’s history and that of the College,” says Vasington.
While he was a devoted resident of Mansfield, his legacy goes far beyond UConn’s main campus and the surrounding area.
In 1989, Favretti retired from teaching to build a private design firm with a specialty in preservation.
Favretti’s influence can also be seen at some of the most important historic gardens in American culture. Nicknamed the “Dean of historic restoration,” Favretti served as the consulting landscape architect for the Garden Club of Virginia for 20 years, from 1978 to 1998. In this role, he conceived of and oversaw the installation of preservation and restoration projects at Monticello, Mount Vernon, and Montpelier, some of Colonial America’s most important landmarks.
His contribution has had such an impact on the field of landscape architecture that he was inducted as a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects in 1992, and his collected works are stored in the Smithsonian Institute’s Archives of American Gardens Collections and in UConn’s Dodd Center for Special Collections and Archives.
During his “retirement,” Favretti found time to serve as head of the Mansfield Planning & Zoning Committee and published books for the Mansfield Historical Society dealing with the history of each of the original town school districts.
“Rudy’s love of learning and sharing that love with others never stopped,” says Anderson.
UConn Homecoming
In the months leading up to Favretti’s passing, the arboretum committee and the University had hoped to record and honor his contribution to UConn. Unfortunately, a scheduled interview that would have allowed Favretti to speak personally about his beloved university and field of landscape architecture wouldn’t come to pass.
But his friends, colleagues, and wife Joy kept thinking of a way to honor these “forever friends.”
In the summer of 2023, Joy offered to donate “Rudy’s Joy” to UConn as a memorial and to have it moved to an appropriate spot on campus for planting. So, in November 2023 the special tree was moved by one of Rudy’s former students from its overcrowded place in the Favretti garden to a welcoming spot where it can grow and develop on UConn’s Storrs campus. Here, the tree looks across to the College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources, where both Waxman and Favretti devoted so much of their energy and intellect.
“Here, in this spot, it is a fitting memorial to our forever friendship,” says Joy Favretti.
