Arboretum director Drake Fowler earns top landscape architecture honor

The North Carolina Arboretum’s director now carries one of landscape architecture’s highest honors at a time when the Asheville institution is still repairing the damage from Hurricane Helene. Drake Fowler, who has led the Arboretum since 2024, was elected to the 2026 Council of Fellows of the American Society of Landscape Architects.

ASLA said the 2026 class includes 36 members and that fellowship is based on work, leadership, knowledge and service. The fellows are scheduled to be formally elevated at the 2026 Conference on Landscape Architecture. For Buncombe County, the recognition puts a national spotlight on a leader who has spent years inside the organization, not just at its top. Fowler served a decade as the Arboretum’s chief financial officer and deputy director before becoming executive director, a background that gave him a direct role in the institution’s finances, operations and long-term direction.

ASLA’s fellows profile also identifies Fowler as a past president of the North Carolina ASLA Chapter. The profile says he has advocated for landscapes in society, including conserving threatened species at Willow Pond and helping secure millions in funding for public assets. That kind of work matters in western North Carolina, where the Arboretum functions as more than a scenic stop. The site describes itself as a 434-acre public garden in the Bent Creek Experimental Forest of the Pisgah National Forest, just south of downtown Asheville, with cultivated gardens and miles of trails that draw residents, school groups and visitors into a major public green space.

The timing of Fowler’s honor also reflects the Arboretum’s recovery phase after Helene. The Arboretum said more than 10,000 trees were blown down on its grounds during the storm. Its formal gardens reopened about a month later, and a temporary greenway opened two weeks after the storm, giving the community a place to walk, breathe and recover. By late 2025, most of its 10-mile trail network had reopened.

The Arboretum says construction and trail-access work are still underway to address Helene impacts. Fowler’s elevation to Fellow could help raise the Arboretum’s profile with professional partners, conservation advocates and funders at a moment when Asheville institutions are being measured not only by prestige, but by how well they help the region rebuild.