CHARLES STIRTON, Director of the newly formed National

Botanic Garden of Wales, argues that new thinking and an

outward-looking approach are needed on how botanic gardens
can respond to the needs of the third millennium.

Botanic gardens are great places to grow people.” When I first heard
the late Bill Stein utter this over a beer in Montreal seven years ago I
never appreciated at the time how much it would influence my
approach to helping build a new national botanic garden. What Bill had
said seemed to place visitors at the heart of the botanic garden
enterprise. To the British tradition of building botanic gardens this
seemed a radical idea, but one which many American gardens had
already adopted.

The National Botanic Garden of Wales opened its gates on 24 May

2000. For many the opening was a significant cultural experience. The
Garden is the first National Garden of the third millennium and the
first national institution created by the devolved National Assembly of Wales. It is the first major
botanic garden in the United Kingdom for over two centuries, and possibly one of the very few in the
world built on the principles of sustainable development. The £43.6 million project has taken a decade
to build from inception to opening.

So what lessons can we share with other aspirant gardens and with those gardens that wish to be
more responsive to the needs of the 21st Century? Are the early models still relevant for today or is
there a different approach to building new gardens? The answers to these questions must derive from
a clear understanding of the purpose of any proposed new garden.

Much garden design in Europe has been driven by various „schools‟ or „-isms‟. The emphasis has been
placed on the quality and content of the landscapes, vistas, scientific needs, and the plant collections.
These influences are reflected in gardens around the globe. Visitors or „customers‟ have rarely been at
the heart of the development of botanic gardens over the last few centuries.

Perhaps gardens of the 21st Century might become more aligned with the cultures and social needs of
the areas within which they exist or are linked to? Some examples may illustrate this. When I visited
the Limbe Botanic Garden in Cameroon I was fascinated by a large „gathering area‟ which looked like
two grandstands facing each other but with only a narrow promenade between them. On weekends
thousands of people gather here to celebrate music, weddings and important civic occasions. Perhaps
future gardens might build such „gathering areas‟ into the heart of their design? In Wales we have
built a gathering square in the heart of the site surrounded on three sides by buildings. One could
easily imagine a Harambee garden in Kenya or an Indaba garden in South Africa.

Why do I think it is important for gardens to be more focussed on their visitors as active participants
rather than as passive itinerants? The prime reason is because the rate of plant extinction may
approach 50% before the 21st Century is out and people need to learn more about this and become
involved. Gardens are one of the few places where the conservation message can be delivered to the
public in an integrated and constructive way. Gathering places bring in new audiences, and inspire
and enable visitors to engage in issues and programme themselves. In our garden we have marketed
the garden to bring in non-traditional visitors, thereby extending the reach and scope of the key
messages in which we want to engage the public.

Key messages can be many but for interpretation to work there needs to be a clear underlying
purpose and focus. This should be articulated in a set of clear messages, delivered in multiple ways
within a distinct and across-the-board brand design. In Wales we have adopted a preferred futures
approach (setting out a desired future and then acting now to enable it), underpinned by the
principles of sustainable development. The words „preferred futures‟ and „sustainable development‟
 are not used in our interpretation, but they underlie it. We
have focussed primarily on ecosystem and habitat
conservation, plants for health and life, impact of invasive
species, and the importance of water.

New gardens should develop a unique sense of place.

Structures should „emerge‟ from the landscape and the
culture. For example, our Great Glasshouse is an analogue of
the surrounding low curved Carmarthenshire Hills. The 400m
long Broadwalk is an analogue of a nearby floodplain and has
a meandering rill, offset pools, rocky outcrops („Rocks of Ages‟) and source and sink fountains. Both
structures are unique and are the garden‟s two major art forms. The Great Glasshouse is more than
an emergent structure. It is also an icon and a great source of local pride. It gives a definitive sense of
place … which brings us to Community.

Gathering places are places for people. Too much effort is put into the hard landscapes and
infrastructure and not enough into the „software‟. There is still a large obsession with structures and
processes rather than products. What does the customer want or need? If new gardens can engage
their local community, or better still emerge from them, they will be sustainable. The communities will
have a sense of place, belonging, and share in the benefits of the enterprise.

New gardens could help people become part of a learning society, stretch their horizons, and reduce
social exclusion. Gardens provide bridges for volunteers to get back into full-time work, or to transfer
their life skills to new generations. This is not easy. One way to do it is to be outward-looking
(centripetal) instead of inward-looking (centrifugal). How can this be achieved? By asking, “What can
we do for our community and environment?” There are many simple ways. For example, sourcing
building materials and artisans locally, selling locally produced crafts and foods, and outsourcing
services such as catering, plant sales, cleaning, maintenance and security. New gardens need to be
beautiful, flexible, innovative, enterprising, responsible, ethical, proactive and centres of best practice
in employment and environmental standards.

The opportunities and pressures facing new gardens are very different from those of their
predecessors. In the past the resources of the world were thought to be infinite, whether owned
privately, commonly or imperially. The scientific focus was on exploration, discovery, collection,
description and cataloguing. There were also large translocations of economically important plants
around the globe, from colony to colony.

Today‟s world is very different. Just ten years on from the Rio Earth Summit there are nearly one
billion more people on earth. We live in a world of considerable environmental concern, finite
resources, new pests and diseases, rapid climate change, globalization and acute interdependencies.
There has been a shift in approach to ownership of genetic resources with recognition of national
sovereignty rights. All these elements have an influence on what a modern botanic garden might
aspire to be and what collections it may hold.

In looking at how new botanic gardens might develop I would place people at the heart of the
enterprise. We now know enough about living sustainably and protecting the environment. The world‟s
botanic gardens – 1846 of them at the last count – must now undertake a radical shift in emphasis
and engage their 150 million annual visitors in an action-oriented programme of life-style changes.

A key feature of the new National Botanic Garden of Wales is its focus to be part of regional economic
development. Gardens can become nodes of partnership and help facilitate new jobs, new industries
and better health. As an example, Cambrian Ventures will open in January 2002. It is Phase 1 of our
Science Centre and has 14 units for start-up businesses – a science business incubator, nurturing local
job creation.

Our visitors must become missionaries not only for the conservation of plants and habitats but also to
change their own lives. This must be done first in our back yards and neighbourhoods and then in our
households. One hundred and fifty million consumers living more sustainably will be an excellent start.
Changing personal consumer decisions will be the make or break of the world‟s biodiversity. As
conservationists we could do not better than beginning with ourselves. Yet, with all this we must
never forget that gardens are cultural spaces; balm for the senses in a troubled world. Places to grow
people. Reprinted from Plant Talk No 22/23 (July 2000)