NORTHPARK’S PLANT PRODIGY

LANDSCAPE DESIGNER JUDY CUNNINGHAM HAS TRAVELED THE WORLD CREATING MALL LANDSCAPES TO DIE-FOR. BUT SHE ALWAYS RETURNS HOME TO HER MUSE.

SINCE SHE STARTED working for the Nashers and NorthPark Center in the 1970s, Judy Cunningham, 65, has traveled to 300 malls internationally to design landscapes. Her last project was in Abu Dhabi. Nothing could stop her — not even two semis of pumpkins delivered at NorthPark each fall. But everything came screeching to a halt when she was hit by a car.

Eight years ago, she was walking from the Fairmont to downtown corporate offices when the car hit her. “I couldn’t be stopped by a two-by-four. I was on the plane to the Middle East or Spain or London every week. It was time for me to stop. I just wasn’t going to. The car accident was probably a life-saving incident for me.”

Cunningham was hired by Raymond Nasher 40 years ago. “I worked with Patsy long enough to know her vision,” she says. “And now Nancy’s got that vision.”

“Instead of ‘planting,’ I like to call it ‘performance art.’ We use the plants as paint. We draw all the sketches. We do all the design. We consider the plant materials as brushes of paint. We go far and wide to find what kind of brushstrokes we want.”

Cunningham and team Alice Goss and William Roberts work up to a year and a half in advance on the plans. The arrangements are often three-dimensional. “My second love are textiles,” she says. “I weave, crochet, knit and all that. In landscape there are a lot of parallels because it’s all geometric and simple.”

Plants are grown in California, Florida and Texas. “I was going around the world, and NorthPark had the most cutting edge stuff that we know.” She won’t disclose the cost except to say “just put a one at the top of the page and start adding zeroes.”

Her favorite season is fall. She and her team hand-place every pumpkin and gourd that goes in the shopping center beginning at 4 a.m.

“I can’t tell you how many people tell me, ‘When I have a bad day, I go to NorthPark and look at the landscaping.’ It brings tears to my eyes. I love hearing, ‘You guys beat yourselves again.’ ”

NORTHPARK’S INTERIOR PLANT WORLD

4,600 NUMBER OF BROMELIADS

1,300 NUMBER OF SANSEVIERIA 550 NUMBER OF CACTI 500 NUMBER OF ORCHIDS

10 NUMBER OF BROMELIAD SPECIES

960 CUBIC FEET OF POTTING SOIL USED ANNUALLY

URSULINE ACADEMY’S TRADITION has seniors from the all-female school choosing an appropriate long white dress for graduation, where they curtsy while holding a dozen red roses. Then they go off and conquer the world, always mindful of service.

One of the school’s famous graduates, Melinda French Gates, Class of 1982, is a longtime supporter of the school. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provided the lead gift for the academy’s state-of-the-art science, math and technology center.

Each graduate is infused with the school’s motto, “Serviam.” Photos of graduating classes are displayed on the wall.

One graduate, Joyce Meyer, Ursuline Class of 1970, is the current keeper of the archives. She graduated with a degree in Latin at the University of Texas while also studying Spanish. In addition, she is a paralegal for criminal courts in Tarrant County and a freelance proofreader. She emphasizes that her family is just one example of an Ursuline legacy among many.

Her mother, Jeanne Hickey, class of 1947, and her aunt, Class of 1940, and great-aunt,

Ursuline Academy of Dallas

Year established: 1874

Enrollment: more than 800

Tuition: $12,900

Class of 1922, are Ursuline pioneers. Meyer’s great-grandfather was a traveling salesman who came to Dallas from French Canada via Weatherford. He boarded his daughters at Ursuline from 1904 to 1906, but they did not graduate. He eventually built a two-story house on 40 acres at the corner of Lovers Lane and Preston Road. His next-door neighbor was where the Ebby Halliday office now stands.

Meyer started archiving at Ursuline as a volunteer. “We were dragging stuff out of people’s attics,” she says. The school is in the process of planning to digitize historical records.

“My family is very big on preserving the stories and history of Dallas,” Meyer says.

She points out a statue that came from France in 1874 and pictures of Ursuline Sisters in the convent. She has a box for each class. Meyer also organizes donated white graduation dresses going back to 1912. You can see them on mannequins displayed at the school during the month of May for graduation.

Says Meyer about Alice Hickey: “I firmly believe she was named after Alice Roosevelt, who was the Princess Diana of her time.” — LISA

KRESL

THE READING RANCH TUTORIAL CENTER

21.4.884.8611 www.readingranch.com info@readingranch.com

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Summer AM/PM classes (June, July, August) Open 7 days-a-week New Writing Lab! Intervention or Enrichment