The Colonization of Plants

The first botanical gardens were in connection to universities in Italy during the mid to late sixteenth century. By the eighteenth century, Western Europe was sending out expeditions specifically dedicated to bringing back flora and fauna from all over the world.

The idea of a botanical garden is great for research but can be also an interesting experience for a visitor. Once entering the glasshouses, a patron can see native plants from six different continents. Essentially, the garden is a melting pot of different varieties and types of greenery (and not so green) from everywhere imaginable. A guava tree from North Africa sits near a Vanilla orchid from Mexico which resides by a Macadamia tree from Australia and so on. It's an overwhelming experience even for those who are not particularly plant savvy. With so many varieties from the far reaches of the earth, the botanical garden also acts as another physical representation of our highly-globalized world and even post-colonialism.

When visiting the botanical gardens in say, Brooklyn , the diverse plant environment seems to act as a living mirror to its exterior surroundings. New York is a city where a different language is heard spoken on every subway ride and where each borough is ethnically diverse and made up of endless neighborhood pockets divided by culture or country of origin. Upon entering the doors of a botanical garden, a similar experience is had. Each step reveals a new plant, placed closely beside another plant, each from a new area of the earth with its own distinct physical characteristics in the small confines of a humid greenhouse. Thus, while the physical traits of the concrete city and the greenery of the gardens differ, the complex diversity of which they are both comprised is strangely similar.

Yet, this complex diversity also is a reminder that the botanical garden is a product of western colonization. Even the scientific classification that adorns each sign below the common name is a categorization created and assigned by the West indicating a hierarchy of power where the West dominates. Much like the first generation immigrants who reside in parts of New York remind us of the developing world and our hand in the complex problems that plague their place of origin, the existence of botanical gardens-while continuing to contribute towards fostering scientific knowledge-stem from colonialism and cultural submission.

Visiting a botanical garden can be highly educational on numerous levels. On one hand it increases our understanding of horticulture and yet on the other it brings into question the validity of that knowledge. After all, our very understanding of our surrounding world, displayed through the gardens, is ethno-centric. A weekend stroll through a local botanical garden can thus become another representation of the current condition within which our world functions and determines what is known and what is not.