Guidelines for establishing ancillary botanic gardens.

Abstract

Ancillary Botanic Gardens (ABGs) are proposed as a new category of botanical learning venues to mitigate decreasing financial and spatial opportunities for the establishment of formal botanic gardens. ABGs are established in any open green space that has existing levels of land protection owing to its primary purpose such as, educational institutions, private institutions, touristic sites, and archeological sites. ABGs seek to engage the stakeholders and larger part of taxonomically illiterate members of society in conceiving and establishing botanic gardens by relying on local nomenclature, common names, or by collaborating with educational institutions. By engaging people from various sectors and backgrounds in establishing ABGs, ‘nature’ is promoted and valued from different perspectives. The objective of this study is to facilitate the establishment of ABGs by developing guidelines that align the transformation process of the space following guidelines that are benchmarked against botanic garden institutions. A content analysis of botanic gardens featured in a global database was conducted to build a list of all botanic garden features, including elements and facilities. The results showed that there are 36 recurring elements in botanic gardens, many of which provide recreational and educational services to visitors. In addition, there are 12 facilities that are repeatedly found and necessary for the operation of botanic gardens. Guidelines were developed by organizing the elements into themes, and by providing a detailed description of each element following a photo-analysis of images representing each element using google images search. The proposed guidelines were then tested on three ancillary botanic garden case studies namely an estate consisting of traditional old agricultural terraces recently converted into an organic farm, a private home garden constituting one of the oldest estates in Beirut, and a private high school campus.