No need to go to Hawaii to enjoy the National Tropical Botanical Garden or Portland, Ore., to enjoy the Portland Japanese Garden — our own U.S. Botanic Garden, in the shadow of the Capitol building, has brought a taste of these and 18 other public gardens to its grounds.
Its garden sampler exhibit, “Celebrating America’s Public Gardens,” will run through Oct. 8. It takes up the entire outdoor exhibit space, including the National Garden and the Conservatory Terrace, which can be accessed even after the regular 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. hours.
Photo Gallery: U.S. Botanic Garden
“The broad public knows that botanical gardens are about beautiful plants,” says Christine Flanagan, public programs manager at the Botanic Garden. “But people might not know all the other things that public gardens offer in terms of education, horticultural therapy and art and how important they are for our communities and for our nation as a whole.
“They change people’s lives,” says Ms. Flanagan, who holds a doctorate in ecology and evolutionary biology. “One example is the Cleveland Botanical Garden and its Green Corps program.”
The program sponsors at-risk youths who learn about horticulture while they make an hourly wage during the summer. The youths grow vegetables and make salsa, which they later sell.
“They learn about healthful food, horticulture and entrepreneurship all at once,” Ms. Flanagan says. Since the program’s inception in 2001, more than 66,000 jars of salsa have been sold. “To the kids who have gone through the program, I think it’s easy to argue that it’s changed their lives.”
The program and garden are represented in the Botanic Garden exhibit by a giant reproduction of a salsa can with a tomato plant growing inside it.
Other public gardens are represented by mini-exhibit renderings of how the actual garden looks. Take the Portland Japanese Garden. In the exhibit, it is represented by a small rock garden complete with a water feature, bamboo fences, tall grasses and tiny maple trees.
“It’s a very peaceful place. You can just sit and listen to the water,” Ms. Flanagan says.
Yes, this outdoor exhibit is littered with chairs, benches and tables placed in gravel paths and next to various water features and plants, such as tea roses, phlox, narcissus and coneflowers. If it weren’t for the traffic noise, visitors might just forget they’re in the nation’s capital, as surrounding buildings are barely visible in this oasis.
While the Portland Japanese Garden (supposedly one of the most authentic Japanese gardens outside of Japan) focuses on one style and a single ethnic heritage, other exhibit gardens represent ethnic diversity.
Take the Queens Botanical Garden, which embraces the rich cultural traditions from about 150 nations — representing the many immigrants of New York City. The garden is a “meeting ground for those ethnic cultures, encouraging celebration, appreciation and documents of the cultural uses and symbols of plants,” according to the exhibit.
“This exhibit shows how botanic gardens have different missions,” Ms. Flanagan says. “They’re created differently in design and plant material; they’re diverse and surprising.”
Some gardens, for example, are dedicated to displaying art in a natural setting, such as the Frederick Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, Mich.
Yet other gardens featured in the exhibit, such as the Chicago Botanic Garden, are devoted to horticultural therapy. The Chicago garden serves nearly 10,000 participants and trains more than 100 professional caregivers to use this type of therapy.
Another mission of public gardens is to research and restore ecologies, which is the guiding purpose of the National Tropical Botanical Garden, with gardens in Hawaii and Florida. It works on projects such as restoring native plant communities, such as breadfruit and taro, in Hawaii to mimic those seen by the original Polynesian colonists.
On the other side of the world in Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden is involved in community outreach, lending its support and expertise to teach workshops on garden topics such as composting. So far, it supports a network of 100 community gardens.
“I hope, after visiting, people will realize what a difference botanical gardens make,” Ms. Flanagan says. “That they get a sense that plants are important to our lives in many ways and that botanical gardens are natural stewards of our plant world.”
When you go:
Where: U.S. Botanic Garden, 100 Maryland Ave. SW, a block west of the U.S. Capitol building.
Free
10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily; the Conservatory Terrace (in front of the main entrance), where part of the exhibit is located, is open 24 hours a day.
Limited metered street parking and pay garages are nearby. The closest Metro stops are Federal Center SW and Capitol South on the Blue and Orange lines.
202/225-8333 or www.usbg.gov.
The “Celebrating America’s Public Gardens” exhibit runs through Oct. 8 and features a family day with tours, activities and demonstrations from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Saturday.
The Botanic Garden does not have food service, but there are plenty of restaurants and cafeterias in the area, including the cafes at the nearby National Museum of the American Indian and National Gallery of Art.
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