You Could Be In Brooklyn

 A typical Brooklyn brownstone, with typical Brooklyn brownstone plantings ... overlooking the US Capitol building. It's part of a major exhibit at the US Botanic Garden in Washington DC, "Celebrating America's Public Gardens," running through October 8th.

This exhibit by the Brooklyn Botanic Garden is planted with trees and shrubs that can be seen at the garden and in neighborhoods around the borough -- Magnolia grandiflora 'Elizabeth,' Malus 'Red Jade,' River Birches, Switch Grass, and many more.  BBG's Vice-President of Horticulture, Patrick Cullina, said Brooklyn developed many kinds of special gardens that are often found in public gardens across the country.

Click on the link below to listen to Cullina:

Moving along on the outdoor terrace, you can visit the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, Michigan; a carniverous plant display by the North Carolina Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill; rare tropical plants from the Key West Botanical Garden in Florida; and a desert plant display from the Huntington in San Marino, CA.

One particularly striking display is a Japanese garden by the Japanese Garden in Portland, OR.  The garden's executive director, Stephen Bloom, explained that the exhibit conveys a sense of peace and harmony represented by careful placement of garden elements.

Typical Japanese plantings include Japanese maples, azaleas, acorus, hostas, blechnum spicant ferns; and you'll also see a gravel rake, a Kasuga Toro lantern, and a Lotus-style bachi-basin.

(click on images for larger view)

In all, 20 U.S. public gardens are represented, and if you missed the recent glass sculptures by Dale Chihuly at several botanical gardens, you can see one here -- a glass boat filled with plant-like forms.

More importantly, the display outlines research and important public programs taking place at public gardens all over the United States.

The US Botanic Garden's executive director, Holly Shimizu, said the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Kalaheo, Hawaii, is an example of one garden in the forefront of research on invasive species and native plants. "We're very interested in Hawaii because it is the most extreme case of where the exotic invasive plants are killing the natives," she said.  "But also because they tie together their native plants with their people, their ethno-botany, and their garden is doing a lot with ecological restoration."

There are also displays on the Cleveland Botanical Garden's summer youth employment program; the Chicago Botanic Garden's leadership in horticultural therapy programs; and the work of Dr. Griffith Buck at Reiman Gardens at Iowa State University in developing winter-hardy, disease-resistant roses.

The exhibit was inspired by the annual conference in Washington DC this June of the American Public Gardens Association.

Other gardens represented in the exhibit, including the Sarah P. Duke Gardens, with the US Capitol in the background:

Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest in Clermont, KY
Denver Botanic Gardens
Norfolk Botanical Garden
The Sarah P. Duke Gardens, Durham, NC
Center for Plant Conservation, St. Louis, MO
Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden, Coral Gables, FL
Rio Grande Botanical Garden, Albuquerque, NM
The North Carolina Arboretum, Asheville, NC
UC Davis Arboretum, Davis, CA.
Missouri Botanic Garden, St. Louis, MO

Comments

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