Recognizing National Public Gardens Day

Floor Speech

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, this May 7 is National Public Gardens Day, a day for us to celebrate the important role public gardens play in our communities and throughout our Nation. Across this great country, more than 500 public gardens are keeping our Nation connected to our natural world, our history, and our culture. These public gardens include arboreta, botanical gardens, zoos, historic landscapes, college campuses, and children's gardens. Together they form a web that preserves the beauty and complexity of plants and animals and humanity's interaction with them.

There is a great thirst for the knowledge and experiences public gardens can provide. Gardening is the most popular hobby in the United States, and more than 70 million people visit public gardens annually. People from all backgrounds, age groups, and geographic regions regularly share in the beauty and serenity of natural spaces such as our public gardens.

Here in Washington, DC, just across the street from the Capitol, is the U.S. Botanic Garden. Called ``America's Garden,'' it is a gateway for people to enjoy the beauty of plants while learning about the role plants play in commerce, culture, and kinship. The United States Botanic Garden is also responsible for helping to preserve and maintain the Capitol Grounds, which are enjoyed by over 3 million people who visit the Capitol every year.

In my own home State of Illinois, our 32 public gardens include wonderful and varied institutions, such as the Morton Arboretum and the Quad City Botanical Center, places such as the Cantigny Foundation and the Skokie Northshore Sculpture Park.

Among Illinois' valued public gardens is the Chicago Botanic Garden, which serves nearly 1 million visitors annually. Its classes are attended by 57,000 visitors, well over half of them school-age children. Millions of schoolchildren have been educated by public gardens about the wonders of nature and the important role of plants in our everyday lives, from the food we eat, to the clothes we wear, to the homes we live in. The Chicago Botanic Garden has hosted 22,000 children on field trips in the past year, providing opportunities for them to interact with nature--a special opportunity for some who may never otherwise get to see a real meadow or visit a lake.

Public gardens are not only committed to growing plants; they are committed to growing minds. As a result, public gardens everywhere are partnering extensively with local schools, colleges and universities, nonprofit organizations, and civic associations. Together they have worked on projects ranging from habitat restoration to landscape beautification, as well as on school-based education programs, public health education programs, and community and school gardens.

The Chicago Botanic Garden is a wonderful example of the partnerships occurring between our public gardens and our colleges. Its Windy City Harvest program partners with City Colleges of Chicago to provide summer jobs and hands-on training for teenagers at sustainable agriculture sites within Chicago. Through this partnership, participants are trained in producing high-value organic produce, which is sold at retail outlets and is made available to local residents. Program participants not only gain important entrepreneurial skills, they learn where their food comes from and the value in nurturing plant life.

We can rely on public gardens to deliver timely and critical resources for plant and water conservation, ecosystem management, green space preservation, and environmental stewardship. Visitors to public gardens have the opportunity to view regionally appropriate landscapes that preserve our precious natural resources--and give them ideas for creating their own.

Public gardens also serve as repositories for rare and endangered plant species. The research conducted by public gardens on these endangered plant species can be crucial to their survival.

Through their conservation and propagation efforts, many plants that would have been lost to us forever through extinction have been saved.

Therefore, this May 7 we should celebrate our public gardens and the many contributions they make to our communities.

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