麻豆传媒

ONE 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 in Michigan, are a plant and art lovers鈥� 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鈥� 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 , once the private gardens of Emperor Franz Joseph I, and the , or 鈥淧eople鈥檚 Garden鈥�, for commoners. The Volksgarten houses a beautiful rose garden and an impressive memorial site to Empress Elisabeth of Austria.

A local tour guide highlighted the origins of the Volksgarten as a place for commoners to visit, and as critical to maintaining the exclusivity of the royal family鈥檚 gardens for their private use.

This might align with perceptions of these spaces as somewhat exclusive. But this isn鈥檛 the origin of modern botanical gardens, which are generally traced to the appointment of professors of botany to the .

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 densely populated 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 , attracting a diverse audience.

Although the closing of lots of public spaces during the covid-19 pandemic posed challenges to botanical gardens, many used . They have also grown their focus on to increase relevance and engagement in recent years, and many botanists are also trying to use them as opportunities to contribute to .

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.