Tower Hill is today's home of the Worcester County Horticultural Society, one of Massachusetts' venerable early-leadership institutions, founded in 1842 to advance the science and practice of horticulture. This it did for over a century from its own Horticulture Hall in downtown Worcester, with flower shows, lectures, a library, and practical programs promoting horticulture as a genteel art, especially among the leading families of Worcester who supported it generously. But times change, and in 1984 the Trustees voted to create an educational and research institution in a botanic garden setting. They purchased the 132-acre Tower Hill Farm, overlooking the Wachusett Reservoir amid thousands of acres of conservation land, and added "ecology " to "science" and "horticulture" as a core program. WCHS has completed the first three phases of a 50-year Master Plan envisioning 80 acres of gardens, 100,000 square feet of buildings, miles of trails through 30 acres of meadows, wetlands and woodlands, and education for everyone. Open year-round, Tower Hill now features a theatre, classrooms, a distinguished library (8,000 titles spanning 500 years of horticultural publications), a Great Hall, an exhibition gallery, a garden shop and cafe. Outstanding collections include more than 700 subtropical plants in a glass Orangerie, and a Preservation Orchard interpreting 300 years of New England pomology (the study of apples), and a Systematic Garden, opened in 2000, displaying 26 plant families arranged according to their evolution.