The Quepos Bridge Club plays at 12 noon every Tuesday at Dos Locos Restaurant.
The “Greening” of the Garden
By Donna Porter
Creating and maintaining private gardens for individuals to enjoy has been a part of my life for the past 30 years, but creating public gardens has been my passion for the last 20. A private garden can be enjoyed by perhaps a hundred or so people, while a public garden is available for the enjoyment and education of hundreds of thousands. Mixing and matching plants in a garden design to showcase (or show-off) their best features is such a pleasure to me and the resulting combination can be magnetizing in a landscape. This is the thrill that makes creating gardens so much fun. But, the real reward for me is utilizing this skill in connecting people with plants.
So what is a public garden and what is so special about them? Well, I am so glad that you asked, and please, allow me to enlighten you. Public gardens are places that are open to the public and whose plantings provide an educational and/or recreational resource that assist in the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and the enhancement of the natural landscape. Public gardens encourage the people/plant connection. In North America, public gardens are as diverse as the natural world itself and include botanical gardens, display gardens, therapeutic gardens, nature centers, sculpture gardens, arboreta, parks, college campuses, historic landscapes and believe it or not, even some cemeteries are considered public gardens. It seems, though, that within this group, botanical gardens hold the most overall appeal.
Whether a person has ever stepped foot into a real botanical garden or not, just the mention of the term seems to conjure up in their imagination a vision of paradise; an idea, at least, of something beautiful or even whimsical. Well, I am here to tell you that a botanical garden can be as intriguing and fanciful in their reality as they are by the essence of their name.
Technically, a botanical garden is a “living” museum, whose collections are plants. Similar to any other museum with collections (be they original paintings, sculpture, cars, historical artifacts, sports memorabilia, etc), it serves to display and to preserve its collections for future generations to enjoy, to utilize and to hopefully benefit from. In the case of a botanical garden it is the plant’s genetic material that is being preserved for future reproduction purposes. For this reason, they are considered highly valuable scientific and environmental facilities.
The criteria that distinguishes a public garden as a ‘botanical garden’ is: that the garden maintain records of its plant collections; that the collections are identified by labels and/or a mapping system; and that the garden serves as an educational resource. Education is a major focus of botanical gardens whether it is through structured workshops for children, teens or adults or through interpretive materials. Botanical gardens serve to heighten the public’s appreciation and awareness of the plant world and of the vital importance of these companions of our earth. They also serve in the area of horticultural advancement. Modern botanical gardens can be as scientific and research oriented as their creators, or current administration, desire them to be; but having a scientific allegiance, to some degree, is the one criteria which sets apart a botanical garden from other types of public gardens.
My all-time favorite definition of a botanical garden is that “a botanical garden is a place where the arts and the sciences intersect”. Art and gardens go hand-in-hand like beans and rice, like the moon and the stars, like music and dance, and nothing enhances a garden to its utmost potential and gives it more pizzazz than the intermingling of creative pieces of art and clever, landscape architectural design.
Even though the majority of U.S. botanical gardens are operated under the auspices of 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations and rely heavily on private donations, membership contributions and grant funding, a commercial/for-profit garden can be as successful, given the correct circumstances. A garden’s gate admissions alone can generate a substantial portion of income and now, more so than ever, gardens are taking a more ingenious approach in generating income. Today’s gardens have become highly innovative in their master planning, designing and programming. They must strive to allure the non-typical visitor, the non-plant or garden enthusiast, through their garden gates. What began centuries ago as storehouses where early plant explorers brought their exotic plant “discoveries” has evolved and flourished into more entertaining, more encompassing and more aesthetically captivating places that serve to fascinate, inspire, soothe and educate its visitors.
The true beneficiaries of a botanical garden are the surrounding, local community. To a community, a botanical garden is a shining gem that offers a wealth of opportunity. It benefits a community in numerous ways including: educationally, recreationally, economically, scientifically, culturally, environmentally, socially, aesthetically and even therapeutically. It becomes a community center, buzzing with activity, radiating in beauty, abounding in knowledge and teeming with tranquility. It invites you in with an enticingly-landscaped entry, welcomes you with an embracing and friendly visitor center, beckons you with playful and mysterious pathways and charms you with its full splendor, beauty and intelligence.
The fact of the matter is that Botanical Gardens are NOT JUST “pretty places”. They are an “experience” that is thoughtfully designed and created for the visitor’s greatest enjoyment and benefit. Massed colorful plantings, theme gardens, private niches and plant collections are masterfully woven together by easily-navigable pathways that meander through a park-like setting interlaced with enchanting sculpture and architectural features such as archways, trellises, tunnels, fountains, pools, waterfalls, pavilions and benches. Innovative design and management are key to capturing and engaging the audience, instilling them not only with a magnificent visual experience, but with a feeling of reverence; a special “sense” of place that will remain in the visitor’s registrar for years to come and keep them coming back.
Awaiting Quepos, its inhabitants and its visitors are awe-inspiring plant displays; collections of heliconias, palms, gingers, crotons, marantas, orchids, bromeliads, tropical fruits, tropical flowering trees and shrubs; a Children’s Jungle Garden; a Reflection Garden; art exhibits; flower shows; concerts; classes and workshops; rare-plant sales; social get-togethers and a one-of-a-kind gift shop and a unique garden café all interspersed within 12-15 acres of fertile, level ground with glorious mountain vistas and, most importantly, within very close proximity (1-2 miles) of central Quepos.
The seed has been planted. An ideal site has been found. A concept design, proposal, business plan and budget for the development and operations of a commercial botanical garden in, and for Quepos are prepared, awaiting the arrival of an investor’s interest and funding; the nourishing rains necessary for this seed to germinate, grow and flourish – The “greening” of the garden. This is an investment invitation; an opportunity so rare and unique that it dares those of you who have vision and the resources to find a comparable opportunity that could parallel this in its potential “wealth” and abundance. This is an invitation for the right person to make an attractive difference, while making an attractive profit; to do something that is dynamic, sustainable, meaningful and genuinely valuable to the area; to do something that will give them a true sense of purpose and immeasurable pride, satisfaction and joy.
All of the essential elements exist right here, right now, in Quepos, Costa Rica for this to be one of the most successful, and beneficial, future attractions and assets to the area. The ideal circumstances are here – the hundreds of thousands of annual visitors, a wide open market, the need, the desire, the experience, the enthusiasm, the perfect location and the ultimate growing climate. Nothing can rival the charm, the elegance, the character and the inherent value of a botanical garden – a paradise (within paradise) with a grand purpose.
Donna is a Horticulturist and has been living and working in Manuel Antonio for 6 years. She consults, designs, installs and maintains gardens for private homes and hotels and also develops botanical trails. Donna is the founder and first Director of the Botanical Garden of the Ozarks and is pursuing the development of a botanical garden in, and for, the Quepos area. dpbgtd@yahoo.com, 2777-5149.
visitors since December 2009
