What Are We Preserving?

Gardens, in one way or another, have always been an expression of our values, culture, and the enduring connection we have to the land. They are portraits of place, imagination, and infinite opportunities; sometimes capturing wildness, always capturing our spirit. In their public iteration, gardens are community resources—sharing intangible heritage and engaging diverse perspectives. When we preserve a garden, we are preserving something essential to what it means to be human.

If there was ever a turning point for gardens in our lifetime, it has been the past year and a half. Across the country and throughout the world, there has been a collective awakening and collective need to connect with nature and to be in gardens. We know intuitively, nature is a great source of stress relief. It is where we originated. The Covid-19 pandemic has revealed just how important gardens are to us.

As playwright Lorraine Hansberry observed, “This is one of the glories of man, the inventiveness of the human mind and the human spirit: whenever life doesn’t seem to give an answer, we create one.”

Historically, and certainly during this pandemic, public gardens and home gardens alike have been the answer for many of us, providing joy and solace, refuge and inspiration, connection with the past and present, and dreams of the future. In 2020, our garden partners from coast-to-coast saw an increase in visitation, in some cases by more than 300%! We have seen a blossoming of victory and community gardens, home vegetable gardens, and immersion into the wilderness, as we have sought out meaningful ways to experience the garden.

For more than 30 years, the Garden Conservancy has been championing gardens and broadening the preservation narrative. Each season has brought new lessons and insights that have inspired our evolving methods for protecting and stewarding these ephemeral cultural beacons. It is through this expanding lens that we view each garden as a whole system. Preserving a garden is the stewardship of botanical diversity, design intent, and architecture. It also gives voice to important stories, seen and unseen. Preserving a garden fosters its growth into a viable and transformative resource, ensuring that it will last into the future.

Preservation is a process, and as with all things that are important, it takes time. “Gardening is the slowest of the performing arts,” observed cultural landscape historian Mac Griswold. We would argue that preservation is even more so.

Our strategic, multidisciplinary approach to preserving gardens weaves together the practical and the intangible. We facilitate on-the-ground restoration of historic gardens and also document gardens, capturing their history and spirit through film, photography, interviews, and archives filled with plans and maps. We hold conservation easements that permanently protect “conservation values”—the most significant features of gardens, such as their plant collections, design, hardscape, and/or vistas. We advocate for gardens at risk, taking a public stand to raise awareness and encourage action. And, as preservation is not possible without education, we engage the community and provide professional development to garden leaders, board members, and staff, and provide mentorship and resources as well.

Preservation is also not possible without community. It is driven by an intricate web of partnerships united in understanding the “why” of gardens, gardens as cultural legacy, and the importance of preserving them. We are grateful to our community, which shares our mission to ensure these important places will be lasting and connect generations over time.

In the following pages, you will hear from many of our friends: leading voices in preservation, landscape architecture, garden history, conservation, and documentation. Their essays are followed by case studies featuring a number of the Garden Conservancy’s partners. They all reveal the garden as a cultural bridge, a site for scientific study and ecological conservation, a path to equity and social justice, a catalyst for design innovation and stimulus for spiritual expansion. It is the stories interwoven through these gardens that reveal what we are really preserving: the human spirit.

Pamela Governale Director of Preservation