Taking it Public

Ellen C. Wells

Imagine a family enjoying a sunny day in the public garden. Nice picture, right? Now imagine 75 million people enjoying a visit to a public garden. That’s the number of visitors public gardens across the U.S. had last year, as estimated by the American Public Gardens Association (APGA).

“There certainly seems to have been an increase,” says Todd Laseigne, garden president and CEO of the Tulsa Botanic Garden in Oklahoma. “Denver Botanic Garden set a record for attendance at 1.4 million visitors, a very large jump from their previous high. You’re just hearing more and more gardens saying there are more and more visitors.”

While visits to public gardens are on the rise, anecdotally business is up for at least one grower serving that market: Peace Tree Farms in Kintnersville, Pennsylvania. “The two fastest growing areas of our business are flower show forcing and botanical gardens and museums,” says Peace Tree’s Lloyd Traven. “They are both highly specialized and both very demanding. The standard you have to hit for them is exceptionally high. The advantage of it is everything is contracted and sold.”

Who, exactly, is coming to the public garden? Those 75 million visitors you’re picturing aren’t all “blue hairs” and garden club folks. There are no hard and firm demographic numbers, but Abby Spencer, director of marketing and outreach for the APGA, and others have noticed a trend. “There is definitely a trend toward more families going to gardens,” notes Abby, “particularly families of a middle class income. Families are coming in because there is more to offer to the children.”

Why Are They Coming?
With visits to garden centers holding steady at 2.5 times per year by gardening consumers over the last 20 years, what can be the reason for visits to public gardens increasing from roughly 50 million visitors about 10 years ago to 75 million today?

“A lot of the reason for the increased interest from the public is because gardens are expanding their offerings to speak more to what the public wants to do,” says Abby. “You’ll see a lot of art exhibits, a lot more music happening, a lot more educational programs.” Abby explains that public gardens are becoming cultural centers rather than focused solely on horticulture. “Obviously all the gardens have a very strong horticultural primary focus, but they are adding in things that speak more to the average person … So people are being driven to the gardens by more than just plants, and once they are there people are learning more about plants and wanting to come back.”

Todd thinks there may be an additional factor involved with the increased attendance. From his experience working with several different public gardens, he believes people are appreciating what botanical gardens offer now more so than 20 years ago. “I don’t know if it’s a generational change or a combination of multiple generations just realizing the importance of green spaces and institutions like public gardens that do what they do—provide beautiful spaces to experience.”

Community Collaboration
Schools, the local symphony, art museums, the historical society—local community organizations of all sorts are making appearances at their local public gardens. As Abby notes, public gardens have stepped up their game to partner and collaborate beyond their own walls. “The other cultural institutions are benefiting from that,” Abby says. “They are all working together.”

Community outreach has become an important part of many botanical gardens’ strategy. “They realize the days when we would wait for people to show up—and it was really for the people in the know, the plant nerds, the wealthier people—those days are gone,” Todd explains. “It’s not enough to sustain us anymore. You’re seeing a lot more outreach to different segments of the community. I think that is driving more into the broader public.”

Pictured: The Des Moines Botanical Garden’s Spring Festival offered more than 430 different kinds of plants, a preview party and a fabulously good time for visitors, generating an impact of $100,000 on the public garden.

“It’s absolutely important for public gardens to be cultural centers,” says Kelly Norris, horticulture manager for the Des Moines Botanical Garden. “The founding philanthropist for this [Botanical Garden] really saw this as a cultural institution. They knew they would hire scientists, but the mission here was not to do science nor conservation—it was to do culture, it was to do horticulture. I think in order for an organization to do that it has to find the cultural interface with gardens. Gardens can be performing arts spaces, entertainment spaces, classrooms, art exhibition spaces, and they can also be home to an incredible amount of plant diversity that greatly affects the aesthetics and functionality of our world. I think it’s fair to say some of this spike [in attendance] is because gardens are getting better at doing the cultural institution thing.”

Once They Come …
Visitors come to enjoy an opera, an art exhibit, a corporate function, a wedding or anniversary celebration … and then what? How do public gardens draw visitors in for the gardens themselves?

“I think a lot of people who come to those kinds of events haven’t necessarily been to a botanical garden before,” Todd says. “They are a new audience.” Once they are there among the beauty of the garden for a special event, that’s when you can entice them back for more. “People are inclined toward beauty,” he says. “You don’t have to work at that.”

“Futuristically speaking we have to come to a more sustainable course on that,” says Kelly. “We can’t just be everything to all people—performing arts space and a museum and a restaurant—without forgetting that we are a botanical garden first and that ultimately the value in what we do is in creating these fantastic living museums, a living construct of not only what people can create in their own homes but also in serving to represent this incredible source of inspiration.”

Kelly likens a public garden to one of those buzz-worthy, hot-shot young chefs in that they stimulate people’s senses. Public gardens, Kelly says, “inspire people to interact and experience something they aren’t going to find in retail and not yet in their own back yard, and may be motivating them to go make that possible.”

To help spark that inspiration, Kelly organized the Des Moines Botanical Garden’s first Spring Garden Festival last year. “We created this festival to help people find the things they were reading and getting excited about but couldn’t find anywhere else,” Kelly says. The Garden generated over $100,000 dollars of impact over the four-day event. That’s good news for the garden, but also a great opportunity for the gardeners to stretch their gardening experience.

Taking Advantage
How does the horticulture industry fit into this equation?

Todd is a firm believer in partnerships with the nursery industry. “It’s a two-way street. The institution has to reach out to the nursery community and I believe the garden centers and nurseries have to reach out to their local botanical garden. At the end of the day if there is no communication it’s not going to happen.” At Tulsa, higher levels of membership to the garden receive discount coupons that can be used at a garden center of affiliated business, for example.

“People come to the garden and say ‘I love this plant. I need to have it. Where can I get it?’ and I’d love to be able to say there are four retailers locally that we work with,” Kelly says. “It could be a partnership program or a preferred buyers program, or a reciprocal thing in that we help to direct traffic that way. We’re a great place to be on the leading edge for getting new material but we’re not in the business of doing retail, so we need to be connected to somebody who can give people access to that kind of new plant material when it comes out.”

“Pay attention to the public gardens, advises Lloyd. “Go there. Become a member and go see what they are doing. Sell what they are showing. Go to places like Longwood Gardens or New York Botanical Garden or Dallas Arboretum and whatever they have on display there, sell it.”

“That’s a great idea!” says Todd. “The garden center people should come visit the garden and introduce themselves to staff, or vice versa. I try to make it a point to get to know people in the local garden centers. If there are plants they’d like to showcase that their public garden grows I think that most public gardens would find a way to get it to them.”

Todd also likes the idea of not-too-frequent staff exchanges—botanical garden staff and garden center staff making visits to each other’s locations for a meet-and-greet and swap of ideas. “You’re also seeing a lot of garden centers starting to do more programming and that is an obvious tie-in,” Todd suggests. Staff from the local public garden can go in and present a program. Or vice versa. It’s about active interaction and engagement.”

Will the Trend Continue?
Todd thinks yes. The economy is in a good space. People are spending more money. “I don’t see any reason why this would stop; I think there is a genuine interest,” he says. “We’ll have kids come in—8, 9, 10 year-olds and even teenagers—and you can see there is a passion about learning something new and so cool. Whether it’s that crazy amorphophallus flower or the Venus fly trap, it just seems there is more interest in it.” Todd chalks it up to the Internet age and an overarching hunger to know things and sate one’s curiosity. “If there is a way to engage the young kids then you know you are speaking toward the future.”

It also depends greatly on horticulture’s relevance in a time when there is so much competing for the consumers’ time, interest and dollars. “I think every public garden asks themselves, ‘What are we doing to be relevant?’ I think our whole industry has to ask that question. We know we’re relevant but we have to sell that. We have to convey and be advocates for beautiful functional green spaces in our communities. GP