In the latest installment of the Temple Made student profile series, meet Denise Racquel Smith, a 31-year-old horticulture major with a passion for plants. She has overseen the planting of native trees in Fairmount Park, helped build shade houses at Temple Ambler, worked to restore a meadow in Elkins Park, studied the Philadelphia region's lichens and held botanical samples collected by Lewis and Clark.

Julia McCabe, M.S. Community and Regional Planning. At Temple Ambler, McCabe, 36 from Upper Dublin, Pa., is president of the Temple Planning Student Organization, co-chair of the Ambler Campus Sustainability Council and a research assistant with the Center for Sustainable Communities.

Experts at Temple's Ambler Arboretum say this winter’s unseasonably warm weather has created confusion among local flora and fauna. Early spring bloomers’ growth cycles are happening three to five weeks early, according to director Jenny Rose Carey.

Philadelphia's Center City District recently rededicated Chestnut Park as John F. Collins Park in honor of the internationally recognized landscape architect and founding chairman of Temple’s Department of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture. Collins, who died in August, spent decades designing and significantly adding to Philadelphia’s greenways.