Thanks to a $500,000 grant from the Gerard B. Lambert Foundation, the greenhouse will be named for the late horticultural designer Rachel “Bunny” Mellon. With an eye for simplicity and elegance, Mellon created gardens — including the White House Rose Garden, at the request of Jacqueline Kennedy — to keep the beauty and natural growth of plants center stage, without hint of the helping human hand. She established the Gerard B. Lambert Foundation in 1976 to honor her father, whose business acumen contributed to the success of the Gillette Safety Razor Company as well as Listerine mouthwash, which Lambert’s father invented in 1879.

The red spruce, the largest conifer indigenous to the Southern Appalachians, is central to the region’s ecosystem, but populations have been impacted by more than a century of logging, fire, pollutants and parasites. The Reserve is a founding member of the Southern Appalachian Spruce Restoration Initiative, a group of organizations, agencies and institutions working to preserve, protect and restore the region’s imperiled spruce-fir ecosystem.

Ground broke on the greenhouse project in November, at which time the Reserve was three-quarters of the way to its fundraising goal with hopes of reaching the finish line in early spring.