Mt. Cuba Center and Galaxy®: Growth at the Forefront

Mt. Cuba Center invites visitors of all ages to explore a blend of formal and naturalistic gardens, ponds, and trails near Wilmington, Delaware. Since opening its gates to the public in 2013, the center has been dedicated to the conservation and preservation of native plants and the habitats they support.

Building on this mission, Mt. Cuba Center expanded its visitor experience in 2019 by adopting Galaxy^®, the Gateway Ticketing Systems^® ticketing software platform. This advancement has helped power a growing suite of community-focused offerings, from continuing education programs and plant sales to enhanced membership and philanthropic opportunities, all designed to connect people more deeply with the natural world.

Scalability for a Greener Future
With roughly 30,000 visitors annually, Mt. Cuba Center leverages Galaxy for its admissions ticketing, continuing education program, ongoing plant sales, and philanthropy initiatives. The center is evolving and changing rapidly, so every new program it launches has the potential to impact operations. Galaxy delivers on that need with its configurability which has solved many logistical challenges. In fact, one of Galaxy’s key selling points was its range of functionality into which the center could grow.

“What we were looking for in 2018 was something that had the functionality that we could use when we needed to get there,” Kyle Cantarera, Manager, Guest Experience at Mt. Cuba Center, said. “Galaxy seemed to be able to check all the boxes when we were ready to check them,” adding that knowing Galaxy could handle the continuing education pieces was important.

Continuing Education Initiatives
Mt. Cuba Center’s robust continuing education program serves adults looking to expand their knowledge of native plants and their habitat and ecosystem in the Mid-Atlantic region. Galaxy has been able to help staff and volunteers involved with this program work through site-specific challenges such as monitoring class registration and attendance as well as tracking revenue generated.

Being able to access this data and create a series of reports has been crucial for sustained growth and tailoring the program to better serve its enrollment. Specifically, the center was able to build a report that enables staff to scan barcodes within the classroom to track attendance.

“Over the years, we’ve been adding these things and so far, Galaxy has been able to support all of that,” Cantarera said, adding that it has been a superior experience using a single system to handle all these needs.

Purpose and Vision
As a mission-driven attraction, Mt. Cuba Center sells native plants to support pollinators and their indigenous habitat. Since its inception in 2019, the volume of plant sales has increased exponentially. What started as an offering of three types of native plants has grown to include 232 varieties as of last year. Galaxy has been able to grow with volume of plant sales as the plant sale initiative has grown.

In fact, the center sold approximately 9,000 plants in 2025 and expects to exceed that threshold this year. Staff and volunteers use Galaxy to track daily sales and monitor what inventory is selling when, so the greenhouse can respond to consumer demands quickly and efficiently.

Over a recent April weekend, the center sold nearly 1,500 plants, which exceeded their expectations. With Galaxy tracking these sales, they were able to handle the demand and impact on inventory seamlessly.

Memberships and Loyalty
Mt. Cuba Center started its membership program in 2019 and has been using Galaxy to manage it since then. The membership team uses Galaxy reporting to collect data on who is visiting, when they are visiting, and how often they are visiting. Member events, group visits, sales, and revenue all are managed through this reporting tool.

Staff and volunteer passes and discounted tickets are available digitally through a portal configured within Galaxy. In this way, Galaxy serves the internal needs as well.

“Our partnership with GTS has been a fruitful collaboration, not only because of the functionality of the system, but also because of the strong commitment of Gateway team members to find solutions to our site-specific challenges,” Cantarera explained.

A New Chapter in Giving
Earlier this year, Mt. Cuba Center launched its philanthropy program. The center can collect donations within Galaxy, and these monies help fund the public botanic garden’s daily operations. Native plants are critical for healthy ecosystems and the survival of pollinators and birds as well as other wildlife. Galaxy’s scalability is functional for a smaller facility and since Mt. Cuba Center is relatively new to the public, this platform is the perfect partner to support its growth and, in turn, the sustained growth of the ecosystem.

“Our organization was looking for a ticketing system that could grow with us, and we found it with Galaxy,” Cantarera said. “Its robust set of tools gave us the functionality we needed in the moment along with the ability to leverage additional features later when we were ready to take the next step.”

Read more about Galaxy 8, GTS’s latest ticketing solution, or learn how the GTS platform can support your establishment today.