[2][3][4] He was a man of many talents including naturalist, explorer, writer, photographer, artist, horticulturist and a well-respected landscape architect in Florida.

In 1910 he decided to leave Philadelphia and took a job with his father's newspaper as Associate Editor back in Elmer, NJ.

In Mulford's time, the collected spring water and squab would eventually find their way to tables as far away as Harrisburg and Philadelphia.

Hubbard, a writer and publisher of east Aurora, N.Y. had established a philosophical society which coincided with the developing philosophy held by Mulford.

During the presentation they coiled around his neck, found refuge in his pockets or slid inside his shirt against his warm body.

Conrad once wrote "If anyone has a unique paradise of his own on earth, that one is Mulford Foster, Master of one of the prettiest and wildest valleys in Pennsylvania, he has on his immense primeval estate a limpid lake where wood creatures come down to drink, a magic winding little river for his silent canoe, a collection of almost every variety of domestic animal and bird, pet skunks, several dozen kinds of tamed snakes, wild flowers, trees and shrubs and a million wild creatures that have flocked to his place from the mountains about because they know that no harm can come to them here, and Foster attired in brown flannel and stealing noiselessly through the woods with the light foot and deftness of a Mohican, is all day long and often at evening out among them.".

[7] While working for the Davy Tree Company he began entertaining the idea of changing professions and with his prior passion for growing and designing gardens in his youth, he liked the prospect of becoming a landscape architect.

A Graflex camera became his constant companion on field trips exploring for snakes, the primary subject on his film of those early days.

Once he lived in Florida he began taking photos of large estates including their grounds, their gardens, their specimen plants, the vistas as seen through their gates and sold them for extra income.

[7] This experience came about when Stokowski, a long-time friend of Mrs. Bovington, then employing Mulford as a landscape architect for her estate, told her he was looking for someone to accompany the family to Europe.

It was almost by the demand of Stokowski that Mulford created over forty impressions of his experience that summer, the major portions being the French Alps in and around Haute Savoir.

The very young Bali girls perform their ceremonial dances by undulating motion of the arms rather than of the feet or body.

The idea of the painting was to build a symphonic interpretation of these motifs from their original primitive representations, reappearing again in living form.

This begins with the flowering date palm and its maze of thousand spikes or thorns pointing in every direction guarding reproduction from conception to maturing of egg cells that we call seeds or fruit.

The painting is filled with subtle repetitions with colors suggesting a deep primeval forest with its many hidden forms.

[6][7] While Mulford was exploring South America, he initially would paint his renditions of the plants that he and Racine had collected including the flowers and fruit found.

[14] During the decades of the 1950s and 1960s while much of Mulford's time was spent exploring, collecting, writing, cultivating, and designing yards he also managed to paint.

[15] He ultimately held a showing at the Art Center of Maitland in September 1975 exhibiting all his paintings including all the series from the Photographic to the Synthesis.

[8] The Foster estate donated Mulford's last series of paintings to the Harry P. Leu Gardens where they are part of a permanent art exhibit.

In 1953 he and his wife, Racine purchased 12 acres (49,000 m2) of property north of town and named it "Bromel-La" and 6 years later their house was built and they moved on to the land.

The property would be a showcase and sanctuary of plants that had been both collected as well as his hybrid bromeliads during the 20 years that he and Racine owned the land.

It had been hoped that after his death the property would remain a safe haven for bromeliads but the monies for this purpose were never raised and it was sold to private sources.

[7] Around this same time Mulford met Lyman Smith who was working at Harvard's Gray Herbarium, being referred to him by sources in the Smithsonian.

In 1948 he made a plant expedition around South America collecting in Dutch Guiana, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia Costa Rica, Cuba, Puerto Rico and Trinidad.

[7][10][14][23] The following species of plants are taken from the Foster's book Brazil, Orchid of the Tropics, the Gray's Herbarium at Harvard University and the Smithsonian Institution's Department of Botany.

Beginning in the 1940s Mulford along with Racine began publishing their ever-expanding bromeliad knowledge in a wide variety of garden and horticultural publications.

A special article called "Puya, the Pineapple's Andean Ancestor" was published in the October 1950 National Geographic Magazine along with color photos.

[26] It was also during this time that they began writing their collaborative books based on travels to South America including Brazil, Orchid of the Tropics,[14] Bromeliads-A Cultural Handbook and Air Gardens of Brazil[27] Mulford also became the founder and President of the Bromeliad Society in 1950 through 1959 and became its editor from 1951 through 1958 [28] and with his editorship of the Bulletin his audience became worldwide.

He wrote numerous pieces for the Bromeliad Journal International which can be found in their archives with an examples frequently seen in reprints even today.

Both were heavily committed to this publication at the beginning, often using their own monies to help publish the journal in the early years.