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dcthe washington post
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thursday, march(^5) ,
2020
expand programs for
underserved parts of the city and
build on efforts to use the garden
for horticultural therapy.
At the production greenhouse
site, “we would love to have a
place where people can see what
it’s like to grow food in the urban
environment,” she said. “We have
identified space where we can
put in an urban farm.”
The Botanic Garden opened
its annual winter-into-spring
orchid show Friday (in
collaboration with the
Smithsonian), a reminder that
although plants give us life and
food and comfort, they are also
the source of beauty and
pleasure. And for scribes, one
hopes, inspiration.
What inspires me these days is
the sight of young people in the
conservatory — in their teens
and 20s, and there are plenty of
them — because their presence
belies the idea that, in our digital
and urbanized age, we are raising
generations disconnected from
nature.
To the extent that people of my
generation forgot that plants
bring us such things as bread,
chocolate, aspirin and rubber,
not to mention the oxygen we
breathe — future generations
don’t have the luxury of such
indifference or ignorance.
One thing has changed
fundamentally since the Botanic
Garden opened. In the early 19th
century, the world seemed vast
and wild, so untamed to the
Western mind as to be wondrous,
frightening and indestructible. It
now seems a lot smaller and far
more fragile.
When the Botanic Garden
opened, visitors came to be awed
by the wonders of the plant
world and to figure out how it
could serve us. Now, we go to
consider what we can do for
these plants and the shrinking
worlds they come from. The
public money spent on such a
place seems a pretty good
investment to me.
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Also at washingtonpost.com
read past columns by Higgins at
washingtonpost.com/home.
practical value but also a cultural
marker for a new nation.
The bicentennial “is a huge
milestone for us,” said Saharah
Moon Chapotin, executive
director. “It’s a chance to
celebrate everything we have
done and to show where we are
going next, so it feels like a real
turning point.”
She is seeking to expand the
garden’s scientific role, including
sending staff on wild-plant-
collecting trips, both in the
United States and abroad, and its
horticulturists are involved in
native orchid research and
conservation. She also wants to
philanthropists to fix up the
nation’s decaying monuments,
this is something to celebrate.
The Botanic Garden was
granted its congressional charter
during the administration of
James Monroe, and thus was
formed before the Smithsonian
Institution, the Agriculture
Department, the age of steam
locomotion and before the
scientific revolutions of
evolution and genetics. The idea
of a botanic garden was espoused
by George Washington, who
understood that a such a place —
basically a zoo for plants —
would be of scientific and
200 years of the U.S. Botanic Garden: Examining its evolution
Some 30 years
ago, I wanted to
write a letter that
had to be word-
perfect, and I
needed a place
that was quiet,
tranquil and
verdant to do so. I
found the perfect
spot: a bench in
the Palm House of the U.S.
Botanic Garden.
This was the central high
glasshouse in the heart of the
ornate conservatory, built on the
southwest side of the U.S. Capitol
in the early 1930s. As I was
composing my letter, the Palm
House around me was
decomposing. The Art Deco
superstructure was so corroded
that it may not have survived a
hurricane.
I wasn’t aware of this peril at
the time; I just thought it was
great to have the place to myself,
more or less. The few visitors
seemed to be walking around in a
bemused state, as if they had just
stumbled across some lost world.
The lush decay, to the extent it
was palpable, just seemed to add
to the sense of exotic discovery.
To day, I wouldn’t bring my
stationery to the Botanic Garden.
It is no longer off the beaten
track, but is the beaten track,
attracting more than a million
visitors a year. On weekends, it is
busy with people; for the holiday
displays and special shows, it is
crowded. The people are of all
ages; they are from the
metropolitan area and across the
country and across the world.
The Botanic Garden is not a
Smithsonian museum and is not
technically on the Mall, though it
is across Third Street SW from
the National Museum of the
American Indian. It falls under
the domain of Congress, which
has turned out to be propitious
since its ’90s nadir.
Significant renovations and
improvements have occurred
over the past few years, and the
Botanic Garden has avoided the
hard times afflicting, say, our
national parks or the National
Arboretum. It is worth
pondering these improvements
and their value as the Botanic
Garden this year marks its 200th
anniversary.
The Palm House was closed
and dismantled in 1992. Five
years later, the entire
conservatory complex around it
was shuttered for a complete,
four-year restoration, including
its all-important climate-control
systems. The redesigned and
replanted central house has been
renamed the Tropics to reflect
the totality of its flora, and the
secondary glasshouses
Adrian
Higgins
GARDENING
Tip of the Week
rose bushes have broken into
growth but still can be given their
winter pruning. remove old, weak
and diseased canes, and cut back
healthy ones to about 18 inches,
cutting to just above an outward-
facing bud. Protect yourself from
the thorns.
— Adrian Higgins
Home
rationalized by specific plant
habitats.
On the west side of the
conservatory, a once-vacant site
is the location of the three-acre
National Garden, which includes
both formal and naturalistic
water gardens, a rose garden, an
outdoor amphitheater/classroom
and a sophisticated garden of
native trees, shrubs and
perennials and their cultivars,
which continues in borders
outside the railing fence. Funded
by a nonprofit, the National
Fund for the U.S. Botanic
Garden, it opened in 2006.
Across Independence Avenue,
Bartholdi Park has seen its
elaborate monumental fountain
restored and the landscape
reconstructed and replanted as a
series of rain gardens.
Recent repairs to the leaking
roofs of the conservatory
galleries are now finished and
feature a 5,000-square-foot green
roof planted in October with
succulents and grasses.
The garden has an extensive
range of behind-the-scenes
greenhouses in Southwest
Washington, where gardeners
care for its plant collections and
raise new plants for display. T he
production greenhouses, though
not ancient, are aging, and plans
are underway to rebuild them
and use the site for more of the
garden’s educational programs.
In sum, the U.S. Botanic
Garden is on the ups. In a town
where we now rely on
U.s. BotAnIc gArden
After 2 00 years, the U.S. Botanic Garden is in full flower. ABOVE: Bartholdi Park in spring.
BELOW: Crowds flock to the conservatory in 2013 to see the giant arum known as the corpse flower.
MAtt McclAIn/tHe WAsHIngton Post