National Garden Opens in DC (GardenDesignOnline)

Become a Fan

A Sense of Place

The National Garden, the latest addition to the National Mall in Washington DC, officially opened for business October 1st. The garden, adjacent to the US Botanic Garden at the foot of Capitol Hill, is a celebration of American plants. Every single tree is a native variety, from the Pondcypress (Taxodium ascendens) to the Pawpaw (Asimina triloba) and a weeping Eastern Redcedar (Juniperus virginiana). USBG Executive Director Holly Shimizu said the garden is "rich with plants we know will do well here because they're native to the mid-Atlantic" and she said visitors will be able to see a great variety cultivars "that make gardening more fun."

The garden has a number of different elements: a butterfly garden with host and nectar plants; the First Ladies' Water Garden, inspired by a quilt pattern called "Martha Washington;" a formal rose garden; an open-air amphitheater and a Regional Garden containing plants from the coastal plain and the Piedmont region.

Decades in the making, the $11.5 million project was financed by private donations and marks one of the first public-private collaborations sponsored by the Office of the Architect of the Capitol. The idea for the garden came about after a successful campaign by Mary Johnston, wife of then-Senator J. Bennett Johnston of LA to designate the rose as the national flower. The National Garden grew from an original idea for a National Rose Garden near the Capitol. Design competitions were held for the rose garden and the water garden. The landscape architecture firms Edaw Inc of Alexandria, VA and later, the Smith Group, weaved the elements together.

This is not a garden I'd come to see for its fabulous design -- the rose garden is, well, a very traditional design -- and a long path simply meanders around the site -- but it's a place to learn about many fabulous plants that you simply won't see elsewhere. Horticulturist and USBG curator Bill McLaughlin, who selected all of the plants in the garden explained his vision: "I want people to see the diversity of American flora. I want people to see what we have. I want them to see something that gives a sense of place." According to McLaughlin, one of the rarest plants in the garden is the sweet fern, (Comptonia peregrina), which is said to be very difficult to move. McLaughlin planted 100 of them, hoping half would survive, but so far he's lost only a few.

Canebreak bamboo (Arundinaria gigantea), once a very common plant and the only native American bamboo, once represented "a vast ecosystem that's gone now," said McLaughlin. It had nearly disappeared from the landscape by the 1940s, wiping out the passenger pigeon and the carolina parakeet. Visitors will also see the yellow hawthorn (Crataegus flava 'Upright'), the pond pine (Pinus serotina); and swamp titi (Cyrilla racemiflora) among many many others.

No pesticides at all are to be used in this garden. Roses, always difficult to grow in the DC area, were selected for their disease resistance and hardiness, and those that do not survive will be replaced.

The garden is sandwiched in between the USBG and the new American Indian Museum just across the street. And of course it pays homage to Congress. The garden's open-air amphitheater was fashioned from stair treads that once graced the east front of the Capitol building. And from that view at the back of the garden, you can see the twin "domes" of the US Botanic Garden's new conservatory and the Capitol.

The USBG's public programs director Christine Flanagan pointed out that one dome is "dedicated to nurturing life -- plant life." And the other one, she said, "is dedicated to nurturing life, but in a different way: it's all about society and politics and history and tradition. What we need to do is to make sure that the one on the left (the Capitol) is informed by the one on the right." (The Botanic Garden). And I could not agree more.