Stephen Maciejewski

By Andrew Bunting, PHS Vice President of Horticulture

Over my forty years in professional horticulture, I have not met anyone as passionate about plants, gardening, plant collecting and plant conservation as Stephen Maciejewski (pictured above).  I first met Stephen many years ago at the Philadelphia Flower Show where he is an avid exhibitor in the Horticourt specializing in begonias, gesneriads, terrariums and cactus and succulents. Today, after 29 years of exhibiting, he's a fixture in the competitive divisions at the Philadelphia Flower Show's Horticourt. The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) awarded Stephen their highest award in 2022. He received the Medal of Achievement for being an ambassador for local, national, and international horticultural education and cooperation.

Stephen’s passion for plants began at an early age. Son of a Polish farmer, he started acquiring plants with his paper route money as a boy, delivering The Evening Bulletin and The Philadelphia Inquirer.

He has always been concerned about conservation and was first published in a ‘Letter to the Editor’ in The Evening Bulletin, supporting the protection of the Tinicum Preserve in 1966. This tract of land eventually became the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge. 

Stephen has expanded his conservation efforts globally. He co-founded the Gesneriad Conservation Center of China (GCCC) in Guilin, China. The world’s first center is working to save gesneriads from extinction. Primulina maciejewskii (Ma-chay-YEF’-ski-i), is named to  honor his dedication to alerting the world about the impending extinction of  Chinese gesneriads. In 2024, a  newly discovered begonia species in Vietnam was named  Begonia maciejewskii  to acknowledge his work supporting conservation. His plant exploration work for gesneriads and begonias has included trips to Venezuela, Ecuador (pictured), Costa Rica, Trinidad, China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Fiji, Myanmar, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Thailand.

His conservation efforts extend beyond the gardening world. Stephen is extremely active in protecting birds, especially in cities. He is a founding member of Bird Safe Philly and Lights Out Philly. He volunteers daily during spring and fall migration for the Bird Collision Research Project in Center City, Philadelphia and volunteered on the Bird Collision Research Project from 2008-2011, under the auspices of The  Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, The National  Audubon Society, The Philadelphia Zoological Gardens, and the United States  Fish and Wildlife Service.

Stephen is extremely active locally with a myriad of horticultural groups including acting as past president for both the Philadelphia's Liberty Bell chapter of the Gesneriad Society and the Delaware Valley Branch/American Begonia Society. He is an active member of the Humboldt Society and founder of the Lesbian and Gay Naturalist Group, and he is still active 43 years later. 

Additionally, he tends the large garden behind his house in Center City Philadelphia and the award-winning Fitzwater 2000 Community Garden down the street where he is a founding member. When he's not working on the outdoor plants, he's attending to the countless plants growing on the windowsills or light carts throughout his home.