Contemporary roles of botanic gardens
This article followed a keynote presentation at the Australian Friends of Botanic Gardens Conference themed ‘Botanic Gardens: where passion bears fruit’ held in Orange, NSW in April 2008. It was reproduced in various publications. I have added a few slides from my PowerPoint presentation.
Janelle Hatherly 2021
Introduction
What a wonderful title for a conference Botanic Gardens: where passion bears fruit. It combines the two main ingredients of these special places: people with passion and plants that inspire passion. This title inspired me to explore the history of this beautiful plant – the passionfruit – Passiflora species. I browsed the Internet and enjoyed discussing it with my colleagues. Both sources yielded wonderful photographs, especially Google Images.
Did you know that the passionfruit doesn’t derive its name from the word ‘passion’, meaning love, but refers to the Passion of Christ (the period of time between the Last Supper and the death of Christ)? Spanish missionaries saw abundant symbolism between the parts of the flower and the suffering and crucifixion of Christ. Here are some of the analogies they drew: the 72 radial filaments or corona = Christ’s crown of thorns; the three conspicuous stigmas = three nails on the Cross; the 10 petals = 10 faithful apostles and the five anthers = five wounds of Christ.
I also discovered that the Aztecs, Incas and other Native South American Indians used the passionfruit as a sedative and grew it as a crop for thousands of years. The Spanish introduced it to Europe from South America in the 18th century and now the passionfruit is found all over the world and is widely cultivated as a commercial crop.
The passionfruit is an Australian icon. Any ‘true blue’ Aussie has at some stage in their life grown a passionfruit vine on the back fence; decorated pavlova with passionfruit syrup and pulp and drunk Passiona! There are four native species of passionfruit in Australia. Two plants of the species Passiflora herbertiana are found in the Cumberland Plain Woodland at Mount Annan Botanic Garden in 2006. The banana passion fruit is a serious weed in New Zealand and on many Pacific islands. Its seeds are spread by possums, wild pigs and birds.
Every plant has a story to tell and it is little wonder that we like collecting plants and showcasing them in living museums – our botanic gardens.
Botanic gardens as living museums
Like all museums, botanic gardens reflect what we as a society value and consider important. As societies and their needs change, so do the collections within botanic gardens.
Botanic gardens have been pleasure gardens; medical or physic gardens; acclimatisation gardens and systematic/taxonomic collections. Botanic gardens are said to have started with the physic garden in Europe in the 1600s but when does a collection of plants become a botanic garden? Some Persian and Chinese gardens date as far back as 2-4,000 years ago.
In Spain, the gardens at Palacio de Generalife at Granada’s Alhambra date from the beginning of the 14th century but has been restored several times.
Recreation, education, horticulture, research and conservation are recognised as the contemporary functions of botanic gardens. We like to relax and socialise in botanic gardens (visitor feedback regularly refers to the peace and tranquility), learn all about plants and how to grow them. The conservation role has recently expanded to include a global seed banking strategy.
Over the past fifty years or so, botanic gardens have developed a greater appreciation of native flora. Just like other museums specialising in interpreting cultural heritage and displaying rare things, botanic gardens now showcase collections of local plants, especially threatened species. It’s fair to say that botanic gardens of previous centuries focused on the exotic and the useful. The common local native flora was largely ignored.
The era of the ecological garden is now upon us. Botanic gardens around the world have added whole native ecosystems to their estates. For example, the Botanic Gardens Trust in Sydney protects Cumberland Plain Woodland within its Mount Annan Botanic Garden estate and the Mount Tomah Botanic Garden maintains 186 hectares of Blue Mountains sandstone woodland and gullies as a conservation area. Similar satellite gardens can be found associated with other State botanic gardens and the plant collections of many regional botanic gardens are predominantly native species.
Challenges facing our society and our botanic gardens
As the human population and the built environment increase, local natural environments are becoming scarcer. I heard on the news recently that for the first time in human history, the earth’s population is more urban than rural. In fact, according to researchers this happened on Monday 23 May 2007!
As green spaces dwindle, our society isn’t necessarily valuing green spaces more. We are simply getting used to an urban existence devoid of nature and we do so at our own peril. Environmental issues such as climate change; air pollution and water shortage have a high profile but we need to arrest the loss of biodiversity. It, is the only irreversible biological process.
Those of us involved in botanic gardens today face these challenges:
to remain relevant to a society that is becoming increasingly urbanised and disconnected from nature
a need to nurture the next generation of stewards of botanic estates and help ‘sow seeds’ for a greener future.
According to the American naturalist and scientist, Edward O. Wilson, humans subconsciously seek connections with the rest of life. He proposes that the deep affiliations humans have with nature is rooted in our biology. He coined the term ‘biophilia’. We can describe those who love nature as biophiles and biophiles range from wilderness dwellers to those who seek periodic contact with nature.
I would guess most of us belong to the middle category and our botanic gardens are places for rejuvenating our spirits and connecting with nature. And when we’re not at the botanic garden, we’re probably off on a bush walk or immersed in gardening.
There is a third group of biophiles who like nature but only if it is tamed – with neat paths, manicured green grass, shady trees – and full of that familiar life form, humans. This group includes many urban dwellers. Many of our botanic gardens and public parks cater for this group. I visited Kings Park and Botanic Garden in Perth recently. Most of its five million annual visitors don’t venture outside the cultivated gardens and locals congregate at the picnic and play areas of Synergy Parkland and the Lottery West Family Area. Their wilderness areas are relatively empty despite containing amazingly unique native flora and spectacular flowering trees. Western Australia has 5% of the recorded vascular plants on Earth and is Australia’s only terrestrial biodiversity hotspot.
Other current attitudes to nature include being quite comfortable in areas without it or finding nature messy, threatening and in need of control. However, of greater concern is the group that suffers from plant blindness. This group contains many of today’s youth. Here’s an example to illustrate this condition: at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney, when the Wollemi Pine, one of the world’s rarest plants, was on display in a cage (this was essential until it was made commercially available in 2006) children were seen running up to it, looking inside the cage and exclaiming: “Mum, there’s nothing in here!” Of course, the children saw the pine tree inside the cage but to them it was irrelevant – they failed to recognise the importance of this or any other plant to their lives or to the biosphere.
How can we blame them? Many kids today have never experienced the sort of contact with nature that we grew up with. So extensive is this condition that Richard Louv, in his book, Last Child in the Woods has given it a name – Nature-Deficit Disorder. He links separation from nature to:
an increase in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
childhood obesity
lack of creativity and curiosity
ignorance of local flora and fauna
loss of respect for nature and the living world, and
a diminishing sense of community.
Louv says children born after 1980 seldom hear the words “Go and play outside”. His research has led him to the conclusion that baby boomers are probably the last generation to have run wild in the woods, freely explored the nearby creek bed, or built cubbies and tree houses in nearby vacant lots. He says the antidote for this condition is contact with nature.
The good news is that botanic gardens are in a position to provide a safe encounter with nature for today’s children and this has resulted in a worldwide trend to build children’s gardens. Our biggest challenge is to make meaningful connections for kids rather than simply provide just another tamed nature experience which serves primarily to allay parental guilt.
Baby boomers in botanic gardens (especially biophiles such as Friends, volunteers and garden staff) can assist by working out ways to share their passion with children. Start by reflecting on your earliest contact with nature and share your happiest memories with each other. Reflect on how your passion rubbed off on your own children (has it?) and how you engage your grandchildren. Discuss ways to simulate some of these experiences for children (and their carers) visiting your garden and develop opportunities for them to pot up, propagate and care for plants. If possible, support the employment of professional environmental educators.
Turning people on to plants
How can we engage and involve individuals so that they will actually care about nature? As a predominantly urban society, there is a real need to kick start the transition to a spiritual connection with the natural world.
We must counteract plant blindness and get people to notice and care for their natural urban environment and appreciate our Australian bush by turning people on to gardening. Botanic gardens can lead by example by growing and maintaining collections of plants endemic to the area, and demonstrate sustainable garden practices with their exotic collections.
Botanic garden horticulturists are masters at growing anything. They excel in being able to keep alive a wide range of plants from different parts of the world all in the one location. But many ‘mere mortals’ buy plants just because they look nice and then proceed to kill them with ignorance or spread them as weeds. If we want to turn people on to gardening, we have to show them how to grow things that are unlikely to die and how to do it sustainably.
When the new Rose Garden was built at the Royal Botanic Gardens, the horticulturists only planted species suited to Sydney’s climate and committed to sustainable horticultural practices such as IPM (integrated pest management rather than spraying chemicals), minimal watering, mulching etc. A Rose Garden is a very popular spot for weddings so why not take the opportunity to link this life-changing act to other life-changing acts! The number of native beds at the Royal Botanic Gardens – many of which never need watering and survive on Sydney’s rainfall – has also been increased.
Better than just showing people what to do is to get people to garden with you. Many botanic gardens have community volunteers helping with planting, weeding and bush regeneration. As an educator, I marvel at how easy it is to get people excited about plants and gardening. Gardening is:
hands-on and truly interactive
can be done by people of all ages, backgrounds, social status, interest levels and abilities
the rewards and sense of achievement are instant (there’s the satisfaction of successfully planting something) and
ongoing (watching it grow and/or produce fruit).
If one of the key characteristics of education for sustainability is to be ‘future-oriented’, there is hardly a more relevant means of learning this than by undertaking a gardening project. Gardeners plan for change – whether it is next week, next season, next year – and growing plants helps them imagine and plan for a better future. Once we hook people on to plants, the plants will do the rest.
Another way to turn people on to plants is to develop high quality displays and public programs in our gardens that are relevant, engaging and give visitors clear messages about the need for a sustainable future.
Visitors are likely to value plants and the natural world more if they perceive that we value our plants. As well as providing plant identification, plant labels should be attractive and in good condition – to show we care. Signage should be modern looking, contain information relevant to the typical visitor, be easy-to-read and in context with the surrounding plantings. Aesthetic landscaping showcasing the beauty of plants also helps visitors establish spiritual connections with nature.
Public interest in plants can be engaged by developing living exhibitions within botanic gardens. Australia’s Aboriginal heritage interest tourists, so at the Royal Botanic Gardens, four beds of plants native to the Sydney area are the setting for an exhibition called Cadi Jam Ora - First Encounters. A 50m storyline, signage and plant labels interpret Aboriginal uses of plants and illustrates how the land the Gardens occupy was/is significant to local Aboriginal people. Another example of an enticing exhibition is Sex and Death starring orchids and carnivorous plants and set within the rainforests in the Tropical Centre.
Face to face communication is a powerful way of turning people’s attention to plants and the environment. However, effective communication requires two-way conversations. This is where volunteer guides can help botanic gardens get their messages out to a much wider audience. Through conversation they can draw out visitors’ perspectives on plants and the environment and present alternatives to stimulate their critical thinking and empower them to find out more or draw their own conclusions about contemporary issues.
Structured school and community educational programs should be based on contemporary education theory: recognising that we all learn in different ways (verbally, visually, musically, logically, kinesthetically etc) and that visitors come with pre-existing knowledge and interests. These days, the educator/teacher/guide is seen as a facilitator and a fellow learner rather than the font of all knowledge.
We also need to hold educational programs and dialogues out in the community. As well as addressing local environmental issues, community well-being can be enhanced as everyone focuses on plants. To this end, seven years ago the Botanic Gardens Trust and Housing NSW set up a partnership program called Community Greening which now assists 141 disadvantaged communities develop community gardens on common and unused land. External funding (from Housing NSW and a corporate sponsor) has been secured for the next four years to expand the program. And the Trust’s Foundation committed further funding to develop an offspring program dedicated to disadvantaged youth called Youth Community Greening.
Nurturing the next generation of stewards of botanic estates
We live in exciting times – the current technological revolution has had an impact on society equal or greater than the agricultural and the industrial revolutions. Many of us at this conference have watched its genesis. We were there when television first came in, then fax machines, answering machines, cordless phones, mobile phones, PCs, the Internet, digital cameras ... and PowerPoint presentations. It’s a challenge to keep up with the rapid developments and I wonder how many of us have ventured into the brave new world of Skype, MSN, MySpace, Facebook – the tools of communication of our children and grandchildren.
To ask these children (who are more familiar with a computer screen than a garden bed let alone a vegetable patch) to form a spiritual connection with the natural world is unrealistic unless we work out how to reach them through their technology. I heard a talk recently from the Inspire Foundation who engages the ‘digital youth’ in volunteering. Here are some interesting statistics for us to be mindful of:
Kids today don’t remember a time before the internet
Over 83% youth have accessed the internet in the last 12 months
After family and friends, young people go to the internet for advice and support
Television is not important to young people these days, they multitask
Social networking is the most popular way for young people to be entertained and engage in society
On the internet, kids can share their ideas and become involved in issues. Once they get excited about issues they will want to volunteer and be part of the solution.
We need to understand that technology has changed the way tomorrow’s adults engage with society – and it’s global. So how are we going to turn tomorrow’s adults into stewards of our botanic gardens? We need to open our minds to technology and view it as a tool rather than a barrier to connecting with nature.
The aim is to get young people into our botanic gardens and sharing our passion. With the contemporary focus on environmental issues, many young people are getting excited and want to be part of the solution. If they Google ‘volunteer and environment’, are they likely to make contact with your botanic garden? Is your website engaging and attractive to their young eyes? Will your garden appeal to them as a place to socialise with people with similar interests? Can they take a virtual tour of your gardens or get exposure to the passion of young horticulturists in your organisations?
The contemporary roles of education, horticulture and research in botanic gardens are fulfilled (or can be) using this modern technology. For example, school children can/should be able to find information relevant to their studies on our websites. When they come on excursions and get excited about plants, back at school or home they can/should be able to access images of the places they visited, plants they saw, plantings by other students or even things they planted themselves. Are trips to your gardens written up by children on their school websites?
Botanic gardens worldwide are embracing technology to help them fulfill their missions. Did you know that many of today’s horticultural students study their Plant ID by searching Google images and young horticulturists take masses of digital images of plants they have grown and loved? Plant societies that have young horticulturists developing more creative/dynamic websites using their own images are more likely to engage new members and thrive.
Australia’s botanic garden botanists have developed databases such as PlantNET and Flora On-line (a one-stop shop for information on the plants of New South Wales) and AVH (Australia’s Virtual Herbarium) which contributes information on botanical communities to an Atlas of Living Australia. Scientists the world over are working on The Barcode of Life – an initiative devoted to developing DNA barcoding as a global standard for the identification of biological species. It’s an ambitious project that aims to document five million specimens of 500,000 species in five years. This highlights the value of taxonomy. If we know what we have, we’ll notice how quickly we are losing it and can do something about it before it’s too late.
To conclude, botanic gardens are oases of inspiration and through people with a passion for plants we can sow seeds for a greener future.
© Janelle Hatherly
Please credit www.janellehatherly.com if you use any information in this article.
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