Hoeksema Written Project 14 Smith Botanical Gardens Essay

November 28, 11

As I walked through the Smith College botanical gardens and observed the many

different aspects of them, I realized that each aspect had its own story and explanation.

Every room in the indoor gardens and every part of the outdoor gardens gives to the viewer

a new experience; the Desert Room was for cacti, the Palm Room for the tropics, and the

outside gardens for aesthetic purposes. The gardens varied from being highly organized, to

incredibly spastic; from lush and green to arid and brown. As I noticed all of these

differences though, the Palm Room inside and the area around the pond outside really

caught my attention. As I observed each further, I came to the conclusion that everything

all of the trees, plants, and flowers had been arranged the way that it wasthey were for a

reason. Due to the efforts that were done to make the Palm Room look like it was from it’s

natural habitat in Panama and Mexico, I deduced that tThe Palm Room had been created

for scientific research and the outside garden had been created primarily as art.

One of the first things that I noticed about each of these segments of the gardens was

their colors. Inside the Palm Room, almost everything was either a darkish green, or pale

brown. The green of the room was not that of grass though, but was more lush. When one

looked at the room from afar without actually stepping into it, one could tell that there was

a dampness in the air and that there was going to be overgrowth. The room seemed more

alive and real than any other that I experienced. Even though the room was darker because

the trees dense leaves blocked most of the light that the sun shown in, everything just

seemed so full of life. I was more careful walking around, always afraid that I might

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damage the plants when I touched them. Just looking at the color of the bark of the trees, I

felt that they were stronger than the average. There was no peeling bark and the shadows

cast on the trees by the vines that were wrapped around them increased their precedence in

the room. I felt that everything in the room seemed like it belonged there--as if I were

standing in the middle of a tropical forest in Panama.

However, the most colorful and most impressive objects in the Palm room were the

flowers. Amongst all of the large green leaves and the thick brown tree branches, there

were bright pink flowers that stood out. The richness of their color increased the idea that

the room was thriving. The flowers also increased the feeling that one was in a rainforest

when one sees them. The brightness of the flowers also escalated the wildness of the room.

They almost felt dangerous, as if the bright colors amongst the basic dark greens and

browns were a warning. These feelings that I received from being in the Palm Room

emphasized the idea that it was set up to be as natural and real as possible for the purpose

of science, rather than art.

In comparison, the colors of the garden next to the pond emitted a different feeling.

There were more greys and tans mixed in with lighter greens. The plants that appeared

outside seemed almost depressed compared to those from the Palm Room. The trees and

grasses seemed like they were dying. Nothing seemed like it belonged naturally in the

habitat. There was much more light because the garden was outside and there was not

anything blocking he sun’s light, yet this garden almost seemed darker. The bark on the

trees was peeling and the green leaves were turning brown as well. The colors of the

outside garden, altogether, felt much less alive than the Palm Room. The plants seemed like

they were art instead of actually living creatures. This sensation of unnaturalness I received

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from the outside garden supports the theme of the outside garden being solely for artistic

purposes.

In addition to the color of each garden, I noticed the organization of the plants in the

Palm Room and the outside garden. In the Palm Room, all of the plants were scattered

around in no particular order. The vines were sprawled around, hanging from every tree

and plant. The vines and large leaves of the plants hung over the small path leading through

the room. Right where there was a bench for visitors to sit, there were the large leaves

hanging overtop. The first feeling that this disorganization could emit is that Smith College

might not care about the Palm Room as much as others because it is not well organized.

However, under closer scrutiny, in an effort to truly recreate what the tropics might actually

look like, Smith might be really trying to keep the garden looking actually natural as

possible. The plants, therefore, may actually be completely organized but only to the

educated eye. The stress on making the Palm Room as natural as possible reinforces the

idea that it was made for botanists to come and be able to study certain plants that they

would have to travel all the way to the tropics to otherwise study in depth.scientific study.

In contrast to the Palm Room, the outside garden was very organized, The plants look

trimmed and like each was placed somewhere for a reason. The Japanese Umbrella Pine,

which is a tree that is short and has thick clumps of needles, was places next to the other

pine bushes. Everything from the garden next to the pond seemed like it was building up to

the large, magnificent tree called the Camperdown Elm. The different sizes seemed to be

organized to increase towards the Elm. This is probably because the Camperdown Elm is

the most remarkable plant on the outside garden. This organization gave the feeling that

Smith put in a lot of work to the outside gardens; however, it also made the garden seem

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unnatural. Many of the plants come from many different parts of the world in this garden,

which also decreases the natural aspect of the garden. Wadpole describes this presence of

“foreign plants and trees”1 as a vital part of the construction of magnificent, rich gardens.

This precise arrangement and existence of foreign plants show that the outside garden was

organized by Smith College only for viewing pleasure and not for scientific study.

Although the Camperdown Elm was definitely the most noticeable and impressive

plant in the outside garden, the Palm Room had a tree that was arguably more impressive.

The Ficus Religiosa was the largest tree in the Palm Room by far, and trumped the

Camperdown Elm in size. However, the Ficus was not as noticeable in the Palm room as

the Elm was in the outside garden. This was because there was no aspect of the Palm Room

that emphasized the Ficus, unlike the outside garden, which built up the Elm tremendously.

The fact that the Ficus Religiosa was not emphasized by the other plants shows that the

Palm room was more for scientific research than aesthetic pleasure.

In comparing the Palm Room and the outside garden around the pond, I came to the

conclusion that the Palm Room was created for scientific research rather than aesthetic

values and art, like the outside garden. Dunlap wrote in his book Nature and the English

Diaspora that people, “…have sought to understand their lands and find their place in them

by the use of their culture’s organized nature knowledge – science.”2 The effort to make the

Palm Room look natural, or as it would in it’s natural habitat, shows this theme. All of the

plants are from the Mexico to Panama region of the world and are placed strategically to

look as close to what the tropics in Mexico and Panama would look like. This organization

of the plants in the Palm Room looks disorganized to the uneducated eye; however, it is

1 Horace Walpole, “The History of the Modern Taste in Gardening (1771/1780)” in The Genius of the Place, 3142 Dunlap, Nature and the English Diaspora,1st half, 1

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perfect for scientists to study and for people to learn about the tropics without actually

travelling to them. Efforts, like the Palm Room, to recreate a habitat in as much detail as

possible greatly affect botany because they provide an easy and effective way to study

foreign plants without having to travel to far away places.

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