Desert Botanical Garden will host its Annual Members Meeting on May 14 from 10-11:45 a.m.
This year, as part of the the Tancer Distinguished Speaker Series, the Garden is inviting a special presentationby Linda Larson, who is a traveling gardener based in Mesa. Members can reserve their spot here.
In this special Q&A with the Garden, Larson shares more about her work, including her insights into trends for public gardens.
Q: What first inspired you to start visiting botanical gardens, and how has that passion evolved over time?
A: I have always loved flowers. I have a black-and-white picture of me in a little dress and white shoes, bending over the daffodils that lined the sidewalk path to my grandmother’s front door. It is my earliest vivid memory. I have always been attracted to flowers. I’ve been gardening in Arizona for more than 30 years.
Years ago, my husband and I took a road trip cross-country to see family in Indiana.
On the return, we visited some other relatives of his, that we didn’t really know well, and for entertainment, they took us to a casino and a shopping mall. I could not be more miserable anywhere than in a casino.
After we left them, our next stop was at the Dallas Arborteum. We arrived early in the morning and stayed until closing. It made me so happy, and I turned to my husband and said, “This is so wonderful, to spend time in the garden when you’re traveling. I should tell people about this.”
And in my journal, wrote: “A Traveling Gardener wandering, wondering and noticing …” That’s how it began. As a retired public speaking instructor and a passionate gardener, I had a topic and a skill.
I was in the Master Gardener program, and the group had a monthly newsletter, so I wrote my first column for the Master Gardeners. Then I developed my own website and began posting about a garden each month. I have been doing that for 18 years.
Q: When you walk into a new botanical garden, what’s the first thing you look for or pay attention to?
A: Gardens and parks are not always seen as a traveler ‘s destination. But my experience has shown me that visiting gardens truly helps me understand what I experience in visiting a new place. People have said to me, “Why do you keep going to gardens? Don’t you just see the same plants ?” No, I don’t. What I do see is a new environment, a new climate. I might be on a mountainside or in a valley overlooking a beautiful scene. I may be in the south of France or in New Zealand. But in a garden, I am in the land experiencing what that ground is like. It might be rocky, steep, flat or dry. In addition, the garden’s architecture will tell you something about the social history of the time. The garden may surround a Palladian house in Ireland or the grand Alhambra in Spain. It may be in the Cayman Islands where you would see a small house with doors and windows designed symmetrically so that, in times of a great storm, the wind can blow through without damaging the home. You might be at Pierre DuPont’s French Château, which has the grandest French garden in the U.S. So, the variety of architecture is always of interest.
Q: You’ve visited gardens all over—can you share a moment or experience from a garden that truly stayed with you?
A: One of my most memorable stories is about the 30 acres of land needed to be cleared for the Norfolk Botanic Garden, with the goal of planting 5,000 azaleas creating a garden for citizens of the community. This garden was a WPA project made possible because a group of more than 200 African American women and 20 men were assigned to the Azalea Garden project. Laboring from dawn until dusk, the labor crew cleared dense vegetation and carried the equivalent of 150 truckloads of dirt by hand to build a levee for the lake. The laborers were paid 25 cents an hour for their hard work. These workers did this with their bare hands. After they completed this work, they were not allowed to see the results and the flowers they planted. The Azaleas and Daffodils bloomed. Because they were black in the South, where in 1938 racism ruled. It’s this kind of story that I discover in gardens, and it continues to inspire me to explore. Yes, there are also plants, many plants, and in each environment, plants that may be small or struggling in one place can be thriving in a different climate, but there are also such wide varieties that I always discover something new.
Q: What trends or changes have you noticed in botanical gardens in recent years, and what excites you most about the future of these spaces?
A: I am not sure how we get people to think more about visiting parks and Gardens. There is, I believe a bit of nature blindness that people are living with. We are so accustomed to pavement and sidewalks that few people really seek a different path. I once was walking back from a lunch date with a friend, and as we came down from the three-store parking garage, I stopped in my tracks and pointed to the most incredible tree with such interesting branching. I commented on how beautiful it was. My lunch companion looked at me oddly and said “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone talk about a tree being beautiful.” That sort of sums up my concern of individuals not noticing the beauty of nature. Children are being kept inside, and schools barely have windows where a child can notice tree could be blowing in the breeze outside while they noodle their ideas together. Today, playgrounds are rarely grass and trees.
Nature restores my soul. Nature calls me outside every morning. I am fortunate to have my own private garden, and even in the worst of weather, I must go outside to see how my plants and my garden are doing. It has always been so. Since I was a small child, I have been looking for flowers. I hope that, in writing The Traveling Gardener, I am showing people a beautiful world through gardens. I know not everyone can travel, I know not everyone will travel to gardens. I also know that I have convinced even a retired military arms executive to consider visiting gardens. It was never part of his world before. So, people can be inspired.
In summary:
After 18 years of traveling to explore the world through gardens, my husband and I have now visited over 1,200 gardens in 60 different countries and all 50 United States. My explorations include a six-week driving trip in New Zealand. Personally, I think New Zealand has the best gardeners of all the countries that I have visited. I’m sorry, England, you have a great reputation for gardening, but New Zealand is, without a doubt, a horticultural paradise. I have seen the gardens in Japan, Singapore, France, Italy, and Germany. Spain has remarkable gardens as does Portugal. I also recognized how important it is for parks and Gardens to be available to a country’s citizens. I noticed this specifically in Romania and Hungary. After years under a dictator’s rule, with all money directed toward political interests. Today, children are playing in parks that are in ruins and uncared for. It shows you that a government that cares about its citizens will make parks and gardens available. And those who do not care about people will not provide green space to nurture their souls.
