---
title: "Botanical garden"
chunk: 5/5
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botanical_garden"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:29:01.074157+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, all experienced farmers, shared the dream of a national botanic garden, leading to the founding in 1820 of the United States Botanic Garden, next to the Capitol in Washington DC. In 1859, the Missouri Botanical Garden was founded at St Louis, Missouri; it is one of the world's leading gardens specializing in tropical plants.
Russia's botanical gardens include Moscow University Botanic Garden ('the Apothecary Garden'), founded in 1706 by Tsar Peter the Great, and the Saint Petersburg Botanical Garden, (1714).

=== 20th century ===

==== Civic and municipal botanical gardens ====
A large number of civic or municipal botanical gardens were founded in the 19th and 20th centuries. These did not develop scientific facilities or programmes, but the horticultural aspects were strong and the plants often labelled. They were botanical gardens in the sense of building up collections of plants and exchanging seeds with other gardens around the world, although their collection policies were determined by those in day-to-day charge of them. They tended to become little more than beautifully maintained parks and were, indeed, often under general parks administrations.

==== Community engagement ====
The second half of the 20th century saw increasingly sophisticated educational, visitor service, and interpretation services. Botanical gardens started to cater for many interests and their displays reflected this, often including botanical exhibits on themes of evolution, ecology or taxonomy, horticultural displays of attractive flowerbeds and herbaceous borders, plants from different parts of the world, special collections of plant groups such as bamboos or roses, and specialist glasshouse collections such as tropical plants, alpine plants, cacti and orchids, as well as the traditional herb gardens and medicinal plants. Specialised gardens like the Palmengarten in Frankfurt, Germany (1869), one of the world's leading orchid and succulent plant collections, have been very popular. With decreasing financial support from governments, revenue-raising public entertainment increased, including music, art exhibitions, special botanical exhibitions, theatre and film, this being supplemented by the advent of "Friends" organisations and the use of volunteer guides.

==== Plant conservation ====
Plant conservation and the heritage value of exceptional historic landscapes were treated with a growing sense of urgency through the 20th century. Specialist gardens were sometimes given a separate or adjoining site to display native and indigenous plants. In the 1970s, gardens became focused on plant conservation. The Botanic Gardens Conservation Secretariat was established by the IUCN and the World Conservation Union in 1987 with the aim of coordinating the plant conservation efforts of botanical gardens around the world. It maintains a database of rare and endangered species in botanical gardens' living collections. Many gardens hold ex situ conservation collections that preserve genetic variation. These may be held as seeds dried and stored at low temperature, or in tissue culture (such as the Kew Millennium Seedbank); as living plants, including those that are of special horticultural, historical or scientific interest (such as those in the National Plant Collection in the United Kingdom); or by managing and preserving areas of natural vegetation. Collections are often held and cultivated with the intention of reintroduction to their original habitats.

=== 21st century ===

==== New gardens ====

Botanical gardens have continued to be built in the 21st century, such as the first botanical garden in Oman, which is planned to be one of the largest gardens in the world, with the first large-scale cloud forest in a huge glasshouse. Development of botanical gardens in China over recent years has been remarkable, including the Hainan Botanical Garden of Tropical Economic Plants at Guangzhou, South China Botanical Garden, the Xishuangbanna Botanical Garden of Tropical Plants, and the Xiamen Botanic Garden. In developed countries, on the other hand, many have closed for lack of financial support, especially those attached to universities. The Palestine Museum of Natural History has a botanic garden, which has been described as a site of nation-building and resistance by Silvia Hassouna.

==== Missions and strategy ====
The Center for Plant Conservation at St Louis, Missouri, coordinates the conservation of native North American species. The 2006 North American Botanic Garden Strategy for Plant Conservation sets out its goals to document and conserve plant diversity, to use that diversity sustainably, to educate the public about plant diversity, build conservation capacity, and to build support for the strategy itself.
A 2024 review in a special issue of the Journal of Zoological and Botanical Gardens on the sustainability of botanic gardens noted their increasing roles in conservation and research, and the many new gardens created since 1950. In its view, the gardens are being "reinvent[ed]" to serve the goals of conservation, sustainability, and social engagement. It observes that historically, the gardens emerged in an era that saw both the growth of modern science and the colonial era. In response, the gardens have engaged in decolonising and in "new socio-environmental missions". Finally, it attempts to view the gardens on a global scale.
A 2023 historical review by Chinese botanists similarly notes the long history of botanical gardens from the medicinal gardens of the first universities in Renaissance Europe, and from China's ancient Shennong herbal garden tradition. The gardens have in its view continuously adapted to new demands in a changing environment, coming to serve the "core mission of ex situ conservation".
Botanical gardens must find a compromise between the need for peace and seclusion, while at the same time satisfying the public need for information and visitor services that include restaurants, information centres and sales areas that bring with them rubbish, noise, and crowding. Attractive landscaping and planting design sometimes compete with scientific interests—with science now often taking second place. Some gardens are now heritage landscapes that are subject to constant demand for new exhibits and exemplary environmental management.

== See also ==
Herb farm
List of botanical gardens
Plant collecting
National Public Gardens Day
Botanical and horticultural library

== Footnotes ==

== References ==

== Bibliography ==

== Further reading ==

== External links ==
Interactive world-map with botanical gardens, arboretum, plant nurseries and seed-banks.