28 | New Scientist | 4 June 2022
Views Columnist
O
NE of my favourite
ever pastimes is to
visit botanical gardens.
In almost every city I go to,
I make time to wander and
linger among plants.
My local botanical gardens,
the Frederik Meijer Gardens &
Sculpture Park in Michigan, are a
plant and art lovers’ haven. While
you might think that a trip to a
particular garden would be an
infrequent event, I love to visit
multiple times a year, enjoying
the pink swamp milkweed
and black-eyed Susan flowers
supporting the butterflies in
spring, and the yellow, orange
and purple chrysanthemum
flowers in autumn.
Whether the trees are bare,
surrounded by just a few winter
plants and shrubs, or birches
with their distinct white trunks
fully enrobed in mature summer
leaves and providing a robust
background for the gardens’
beautiful sculptures, I observe
and am inspired. One of my
favourite places is among the red
maples in the Japanese garden in
the height of autumn colours.
The joy of walking through
familiar grounds is equalled by
the excitement of exploring new
gardens when I travel. Many a day
in places around the globe starts
with an eager exploration of new
gardens, followed by finding a
bench in a plant-surrounded
enclave to reflect and write.
My most recent venture was in
early May in the heart of Vienna,
Austria, where I visited both the
Burggarten, once the private
gardens of Emperor Franz Joseph I,
and the Volksgarten, or “People’s
Garden”, for commoners. The
Volksgarten houses a beautiful
rose garden and an impressive
memorial site to Empress
Elisabeth of Austria.
A local tour guide highlightedthe origins of the Volksgarten
as a place for commoners to visit,
and as critical to maintaining the
exclusivity of the royal family’s
gardens for their private use.
This might align with
perceptions of these spaces as
somewhat exclusive. But this isn’t
the origin of modern botanical
gardens, which are generally
traced to the appointment of
professors of botany to the
medical faculties of universities
in Italy during the 16th century.
These botanists were stewards
to curate physical gardens housing
medicinal plants. The gardens
served as a pharmacy of sorts,where the curating botanists
possessed pharmaceutical
knowledge of the potential
uses of plants as medicines
and elixirs, i.e. pharmacology.
Botanical gardens also have
deep roots that parallel the
Austrian Burggarten, with royal
gardens emerging early as signs of
wealth and leisure or health. Some
of these royal gardens housed rare
species, including ornamentals,
that were brought back to Europe
from plant expeditions into places
such as India and countries in Asia
and Africa. Many are now open
as public or tourism sites.
The botanical gardens we know
today, which serve as public (or at
least affordable) spaces designed
to showcase plant diversity, and to
facilitate conservation and public
botanical education, came from
these medicinal and royal roots.
Their origins are also associated
with the emergence of denselypopulated towns and cities.
People had fewer opportunities
to engage with plants as these
industrial cities expanded
globally, and botanical gardens
were intended to provide public
education about diverse
plant species, as well as
leisure opportunities in
plant-rich environments.
This promotion of engagement
in green spaces drove the
expansion of botanical gardens
ranging from tree-rich arboretum
spaces to desert species-focused
gardens in arid climates to hybrid
community-centred spaces.
The sculpture park that is
combined with the botanical
gardens at Meijer certainly draws
art enthusiasts as much as plant
lovers. Today, these spaces also
house concert stages and venues
for weddings and parties,
attracting a diverse audience.
Although the closing of lots of
public spaces during the covid-19
pandemic posed challenges to
botanical gardens, many used
digital technology to promote
engagement at a distance. They
have also grown their focus on
community and citizen science
programmes to increase relevance
and engagement in recent years,
and many botanists are also trying
to use them as opportunities
to contribute to important
conversations and research
about climate change.
Frequently, when asked
how to cultivate interest in
plants for those living in cities
and with busy lives, I point to time
in accessible botanical gardens.
While the current spaces have
evolved from their medicinal
roots, they still hold great power
for promoting health and wellness
in many forms, including the
emotional peace and joy found
in engaging with beautiful plants
from all walks of life. ❚“ The joy of walking
through familiar
gardens is equalled
by the excitement of
exploring new ones
when I travel”Time to smell the roses While botanical gardens have evolved
from their medicinal roots in 16th-century Italy, their plants can
still bring peace and joy today, says Beronda L. MontgomeryMy botanical life
This column appears
monthly. Up next week:
Chanda Prescod-WeinsteinWhat I’m reading
I’m absorbing what we
can learn from complaints
about abuses of power
in Complaint! by
Sara Ahmed.What I’m watching
Wild Babies, a Netflix
nature documentary.What I’m working on
I am collaborating
on completing and
submitting a manuscript
on mentoring ecosystems.Beronda’s week
Beronda L. Montgomery
is a writer, researcher and
biochemist who studies how
plants detect and respond to
their local light environment.
She is the author of Lessons
from Plants. You can follow
her on Twitter @BerondaM