A Garden for THE PEOPLE
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here is no doubt that living and working in the time of COVID-19 has changed our priorities and made us all adapt in ways we couldn’t have imagined. But the Garden’s mission has proven to be more urgent than ever, and our communit y has made it clear that having the Garden as a space for outdoor recreation and education has provided much-needed relief. While we had no choice but to pause classes and most in-person tours since March of this year, the Garden has been able to showcase our collections to record numbers of members, local families looking for ways to spend time outside, and brand-new audiences stopping by on road-trips across the state. The Garden’s Education department has taken this opportunit y to engage a broader audience in our mission by increasing onsite opportunities for learning. Caitlin Lam, Lifelong Learning Coordinator & Registrar, is improving and adding to the Garden’s interpretive signs that complement our living collections and challenge visitors to take a closer look at what surrounds them. This gives us a chance to communicate with people throughout the grounds, pointing out seasonal standouts, the phenomena of California plants, and the big picture of the work that the Garden does that could otherwise be missed. Caitlin seeks to orient new visitors to what they are seeing perhaps for the first time and share new insights with longtime visitors and members. After all, the Garden’s guests should have the right to be informed, engaged, and also challenged by their experiences here.
As an accredited living museum and model botanic garden, we document our plant collections for research and conservation, and present them to the public to educate and further their understanding of our work. One of the Garden’s driving motivations is to inspire the next generation of conservationists and protectors of our environment. Education that reaches people where they are and connects them to a larger purpose is how we make that vision a realit y. Over our nearly 95-year history, we have grown and diversified our gardens to be a resource for people of all ages, backgrounds, and experiences. Caitlin has added new display labels, some with common and scientific names of plants and others with text describing interesting or distinctive aspects of the plant. The goal of these additions and updates is to provide educational information that will speak to a broad audience, including children, people who are new to thinking about the world of plants or are unfamiliar with California natives, and plant enthusiasts always looking for more information. The Education department hopes that the display labels will spark an interest or deepen a fascination with plants that encourages a personal relationship with the natural world. This t ype of passive, didactic information may be commonly seen in art or science museums, but there is an important balance to be reached at a botanic garden where the beaut y of natural spaces is so prized.
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Ironwood W I N TER 2020
