Anton Emil Wohlert

Anton Wohlert was best known during his life as a proponent and grower of oriental flowering trees, particularly the Japanese cherry. He suppled them to parks, homes and businesses all over the U.S., including plantings at Narbrook Park, Merion Meeting, Fairmount Park and the Tidal Basin in Washington D.C. He is also credited with street tree plantings throughout Narberth borough.

Among the offerings in this catalog are three cultivars named after his children, the Ruth Wohlert, the Paul Wohlert and the Jeanne Wohlert, "the baby of the family".

He emmigrated to the U.S. from Denmark in 1891, according to the 1920 census. Living in Altoona in 1895, he married Miss Martha Jane Cherry, and was described as a gardener on their marriage license. In the 1900 census, still in Altoona, he is a "flowerist".

But his marriage was dissolved in 1906 ("for Cruel and barbarous treatment", by whom we don't know) and by April 1908, he moved to Philadelphia and remarried, to another Altoonan, Elizabeth Olmes, with whom he had five children. By 1913, he had opened The Garden Nurseries on Montgomery and Gordon Avenues in Lower Merion.

In March 1915, Wohlert bought two lots in the new development of "Narberth Garden", as Narbrook Park was first known. He was the only one of 17 original lot owners to occupy a house built on it, at 26-28 Narbrook Park. He further oversaw the Park's lansdcaping, donating trees and shrubs from his nursery. The mature London plane trees that over a century later still encircle the community green are Wohlert's work.

Financial setbacks during the 1930s depression forced Wohlert to sell parts of his nursery, and cost him his dream house in Narbrook Park.

Local historian and Narbrook neighbor Victoria Donohoe counts Wohlert among "six of the most noteworthy men who provided timely and outstanding leadership during the borough's earliest decades".

Updated August 19, 2026.