 The various titles he was given included administrator of parks, horticulturalist, and park planner.Before emigrating to America in 1888, he worked as a florist and landscaper in Zurich, London, and Paris.He married Leonie Mense, the daughter of his employer in Glen Cove, Long Island, before taking a job as superintendent of parks in Hartford, Connecticut in 1896, where he developed the first municipal rose garden in the country.