Bringing 'The Big Picture' Into Focus

By David R. Brown
Executive Director, Descanso Gardens

In June perhaps as many as 750 plant and public garden professionals will converge on Pasadena for the American Public Gardens Association Annual Conference hosted by Descanso Gardens, The Huntington, The Arboretum and Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Gardens.

APGA members come from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Canada, and 24 other countries.

On June 24, this knowledgeable audience arrives at Descanso for an afternoon of tours with an alfresco dinner following. It’s a tremendous opportunity for international exposure and also a serious responsibility to show our visitors a Descanso Gardens that is the best that it can be.

The theme we chose for this conference was, “The Big Picture.” Yes, we were playing to the rest of the country’s fascination with the Southern California movie industry. But there was a double meaning: we wanted to challenge all the speakers and workshop presenters to address the big issues facing public gardens today, issues like global climate change, irretrievable loss of habitat, species extinction, exotics and invasives, planetary sustainability, and the very survivability of nature-based institutions like public gardens.

Recent press coverage has detailed the drop-off in visitation to our national parks and the decline in attendance at museums of natural history nationwide (Los Angeles’ own included). And the popular book by Richard Louv entitled, “Last Child in the Woods” coined a new term for a malady he says afflicts far too many of today’s young people: “nature deficit disorder.” Clearly, public gardens like Descanso have a splendid opportunity to function as oases of nature in an environment that has become increasingly urban. They provide a safe place to go that’s real rather than a screen depiction, and offer an opportunity in both place and time for direct, unmediated experience with natural things.

Once a year, the public garden community comes together through APGA to share ideas, experiences and concerns with a view toward strengthening its member gardens which, combined, serve more than 70 million visitors a year. For the past several months, the staff and volunteers at Descanso have been working very hard to get the Gardens ready for their “close-up.” If you would like to learn more about the 2008 APGA conference (or even attend one or more of the many fascinating sessions) please take a look at www.publicgardens.org/ConferenceHome.aspx. For our part, it’s been a busy but rewarding experience participating with our neighboring public gardens to put on a “two-thumbs-up” show for our colleagues.