Mt. Cuba Center in Hockessin, Delaware, grew from the 1935 Colonial Revival estate of Lammot du Pont Copeland and Pamela Cunningham Copeland into a public botanical garden known for woodland gardens, spring wildflowers, and native plants from eastern North America and the Appalachian Piedmont. Formal gardens designed by Thomas W. Sears and Marian Cruger Coffin gave way in the 1960s to ecologically minded plantings shaped by Seth Kelsey. Under Dr. Richard Lighty from 1983, the estate developed into a research garden devoted to native flora. Since Pamela Copeland’s death in 2001, it has become a public institution combining historic landscapes, horticultural research, conservation, and education.