AbiriKenya

Parks, gardens or arboretums each offers a unique way to connect with nature, and appeals to different senses based on the foundation of purpose – whether you are stepping into a space meant for play, artistic landscaping, or ecological preservation. A park is primarily a public recreational space designed for leisure, sports and community gatherings – lawns, grounds and paths. A garden focuses on the intentional cultivation and aesthetic display of variagated plant life, flowers, and landscapes for beauty and relaxation. Meanwhile, an arboretum is a specialized botanical garden or “living museum” dedicated to the scientific study, cultivation, and conservation of trees and woody plants.

As we know now, botanical gardens allocate most of their resources to plant conservation and the development of educational activities; making plant species diversity known to the public. In their primal forms as gardens, they play an essential role in human well-being and provide in human needs. By the same token, the Nairobi Arboretum was established in 1907 by Mr. E. Battiscombe, Deputy Conservator of Forests, to test fast-growing exotic tree species needed to supply fuel wood for steam engines on the Kenya-Uganda Railway.

Friends of Nairobi Arboretum (FONA) was founded in 1993 under the umbrella of Nature Kenya (East Africa Natural History Society) by a group of individuals, headed by the late Mrs Ann Birnie. The group was concerned by the decline of the Arboretum during the 1970s and 80s due to neglect and lack of government funding. Since its establishment, FONA has been working alongside Kenya Forest Service to maintain the Arboretum for recreation, education, and scientific knowledge. Key mission includes raising awareness about Nairobi Arboretum and promoting environmental education and plant conservation

In the same way that the picturesque designers were always careful to include some reminder of our mortality in their gardens — a ruin, or even a dead tree — the act of leaving parts of the garden untended, and calling attention to its margins, seems to undermine any pretense to perfect power or wisdom on the part of the gardener. The margins of our gardens can be tropes too, but figures of irony rather than transcendence — antidotes, in fact, to our hubris. It may be in the margins of our gardens that we can find fresh ways to bring our aesthetics and our ethics about the land into some meaningful alignment.

– Michael Pollan

The idea of gardens dates to the Zhou dynasty in China, but the recent concept of a botanical garden started in Europe. The Padova Botanic Garden was built in 1545 in Italy. There are about 2500 botanical gardens worldwide and these gardens are collections of plants cultivated in a closed area and serve as places of biodiversity, culture and heritage, conservation, scientific inquiry and educating us through displays. Botanical gardens conduct several scientific activities such as conservation, propagation, horticulture, seed science, taxonomy, systematics, genetics, biotechnology, education and much more.

Must-See Botanical Marvels

Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden (Cape Town, South Africa), Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden (Roodepoort, South Africa), Pretoria National Botanical Garden (Pretoria, South Africa), Aswan Botanical Garden (Aswan, Egypt), Nairobi Arboretum (Nairobi, Kenya), Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam Botanical Garden (Mauritius).

Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden

The Kirstenbosch NBG is a name that echoes around the world as the place of exclusively rich flora in a background of unsurpassed beauty. The development of Kirstenbosch NBG started soon after the unification of South Africa, on land that was set aside by Cecil John Rhodes. The garden celebrated its centenary in 2013. The Garden is located in Cape Town and is the first garden was situated close to the stream that flows off the north-facing slopes of Table Mountain. KNBG covers an area of 199.2 ha and supports a diverse fynbos flora and natural forest. The cultivated garden (36 hectares) displays collections of South African plants, particularly those from the winter rainfall region of the country. The Garden’s living collections include over 6000 species.

The structural framework of a botanical garden is planned according to geographic origins, taxonomic groups, or landscape-enhancing water features. Rather than grouping trees strictly by textbook definitions, masterfully laid-out gardens intersperse flora to create distinct microclimates and visual highlights.

A magnificent example of this concept is Kapsimotwa Gardens, a hidden gem perched 2,000 meters above sea level in the breathtaking highland region of Nandi Hills, Kenya. Originally carved out in the mid-20th century to disrupt the intensive agricultural mono-culture of local tea farming, Kapsimotwa beautifully demonstrates how a botanical layout can balance aesthetic pleasure with biological preservation. Kapsimotwa’s layout is an engineering feat of natural serenity, spreading across 30 acres of rolling highland terrain