Flowers are "out"

Volunteer Park Conservatory

Well, not in this yard, but in botanical gardens the tide is changing. Water-guzzling, space-hogging flowers are not all that politically correct. If you click here, the link will take you to a NYT article about how public gardens are reinventing themselves with an emphasis on food festivals, art, cooking, health, interactive activities and sustainability. According to the article, there is "less interest in flower-gardening among younger, fickle, multi-tasking generations."

The Cleveland Botanical Gardens Flower Show was the largest in the country, and it was abandoned this year when the garden couldn't find sponsors. The flower show has been replaced by a food and garden festival, sponsored by a medical clinic and a local supermarket chain.

In Seattle, our lovely 100 year old Volunteer Park Conservatory may close due to city budget cuts. The Friends of the Conservatory are working to save the structure, and the rare plants inside. Hopefully it won't be turned into a vegetable hothouse. (I'd be happy to never hear the overused words local and sustainable again.)

As the NYT article says, our society has "a mania for interactive entertainment." Surely we can save a few quiet places for beautiful, useless flowers?