Joy A. Lawrence, a Phila. environmentalist

Joy Allyn Lawrence, 56, of West Mount Airy, an environmentalist who planted trees, restored troubled creeks, and created parks in neighborhoods across the city, died March 20 at her home of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease).

For the last eight years, Ms. Lawrence was on the staff of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS), most recently as program manager for environmental initiatives. She had organized community groups to transform Liberty Lands Park in Northern Liberties, Cliveden Park in East Mount Airy, and Mill Creek Farm in West Philadelphia into ecologically sound storm-water management landscapes, said Joan Reilly, senior director of PHS's urban-greening program, Philadelphia Green.

"Joy had a gift to see the big picture," Reilly said. "She understood the web of connections needed to make a city, a region, a planet, whole and sustainable."

Ms. Lawrence studied horticulture and landscape agriculture at Temple University and botany at the Barnes Foundation School of Horticulture. She took graduate courses in environmental science at the University of Pennsylvania.

"She had great technical knowledge," Reilly said, "but she knew you needed people to get the work done."

She dug in the mud with volunteers, Reilly said. No job was too small or too messy.

From 1999 until 2002, Ms. Lawrence was restoration program manager for the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, an environmental advocacy group. She organized volunteers to build a fish ladder on Walworth Lake in Cherry Hill and to plant 350 bushes and small trees along the Cooper River in Haddonfield.

While on the staff of the Morris Arboretum in Chestnut Hill from 1994 to 1999, she implemented a plan to restore the banks of Paper Mill Run, a tributary of the Wissahickon.

A native of Ohio, Ms. Lawrence earned a bachelor's degree in communications from Cleveland State University and a master's degree in stage production and design from the California Institute of the Arts.

In the 1980s, she worked for a financial firm and an executive recruiting firm in New York City, where she directed fringe-theater productions.

In the early 1990s, she was a freelance copywriter while living in the Poconos. There, she pursued an interest in organic gardening and discovered "a deep passion for environmental stewardship," said Bettina Lesser. Ms. Lawrence and Lesser, a physician, had been a couple since 2002 and married in Massachusetts in 2008.

Ms. Lawrence enjoyed traveling and reading history, fiction, and Shakespeare. She loved adventure and had parachuted out of planes and driven motorcycles and a race car, Lesser said.

In addition to Lesser, Ms. Lawrence is survived by a daughter, Anya Lawrence Lesser; her father, James M. Lawrence; her mother, Josephine Davis; and a brother and sister.

A memorial service will be private.

Donations may be made to the Anya Lesser Education Fund #6209587740 at Citizens Bank, 8615 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia, 19118, or to the Greater Philadelphia Chapter of the ALS Foundation, 321 Norristown Rd., Suite 260, Ambler, Pa. 19002.