GCA Restoration Initiative Grant Helps Restore Storm-Ravaged Gardens

The Garden Club of Houston Obtains Funds to Restore Rienzi’s Gardens

May 28, 2025

By: Jenne Williams

In January, 2025, GCA provided a $10,000 Restoration Initiative (RI) grant to remediate destruction at the historic gardens at Rienzi, home to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH). The Garden Club of Houston (GCH) requested the grant after Rienzi’s gardens were impacted in May 2024 by both a derecho—a widespread band of storms which produce hurricane-force winds—and in July 2024 by Hurricane Beryl. 

The May 16th derecho toppled three mature trees; two water oaks and a white oak. And two magnolias, two water oaks and a large red oak were lost from flooding and winds of Hurricane Beryl. In addition, both storms also damaged small understory plant material. (Last year, River Oaks Garden Club successfully petitioned GCA for an RI for Bayou Bend Gardens—another estate housing MFAH’s American collection—which were devastated by the same storms.)
Designed in the 1950s by landscape architect Ralph Ellis Gunn, the gardens are a blend of formal gardens and native Texas woodlands. For 25 years, the restoration and care of the gardens has been financially supported by GCH.  In collaboration with GCA’s Restoration Initiative, Rienzi will begin healing and regrowing its beloved gardens.  Funds will be used to replace the lost trees with the same genus and species in the same locations within the formal gardens.  

The GCA Restoration Initiative was established in 2017 in response to urgent needs caused by natural disasters such as catastrophic storms, hurricanes, floods, fires, and mudslides, and to assist member clubs working to restore public landscapes and conservation projects.