STEVE WHYSALL: VANCOUVER’S BOTANICAL BLISS
Vandusen is a city treasure
The first thing to say about Vandusen Botanical Garden, the 55- acre treasure trove of plants in the heart of Vancouver at the corner of 33rd and Oak Street, is that it is not a park.
It is not like Stanley Park or Queen Elizabeth Park or any of the other significant garden- like green spaces in Vancouver.
Some people get this wrong. They think it is just a glorified park with a few special plants and a somewhat uppity opinion of itself.
Vandusen is unique because it has the words “botanical garden” in its title. And this makes all the difference. It means that it has a different mandate than, say Stanley Park and Queen Elizabeth Park.
As a botanical garden, Vandusen is a living museum that has a responsibility to preserve, protect, document and maintain collections of plants for the purpose of conservation, education, display and science.
It also needs to conduct research and present responsible horticulture, and ( this is a big one today), demonstrate sustainable ecological practices and promote greater environmental awareness and a deeper sensitivity to all interconnected systems within the natural world.
Other cities have botanical gardens that make them proud. London, Oxford, Edinburgh, Chicago, New York are all cities with top- notch botanical institutions that not only do brilliant horticultural work, but also make the inhabitants of those cities proud to have them as centres of science as well as first- rate tourist attractions.
Vandusen’s destiny should be to move forward to join that elite and become of the world’s esteemed botanical institutions.
The garden took a giant step in this direction at the end of 2011 with the opening of its $ 22 million Visitor’s Centre. This moment ought to have heralded a new era for the garden.
It was trumpeted as a sign that the garden was preparing to become a leader in Canada for horticultural excellence and a shining example of ecological sustainability.
The building itself, with its partial green roof and high- tech water- recovery and energy systems, is a symbol for all the country to see of the garden’s role as an institution that points the way to a more ecologically sustainable and environmentally responsible future.
However, the weight around the garden’s neck – the thing that is holding it back from fulfilling its potential – seems to be the very system that was set up at the beginning to operate it.
Since it opened in 1975, after being transformed from a former golf course into the world- class garden it is today, Vandusen has been jointly operated by Vancouver park board and a separate organization called the Vandusen Botanical Garden Association.
This has been a less- than- perfect partnership, with both sides at times getting in the other’s way and one or other party being held back by lack of will or lack of funds to take the garden to the next level.
The division of responsibilities has always been somewhat complicated. Vandusen’s gardeners and curatorial staff work for the park board, while education programs and the activities of the 1,600 volunteers are organized the VBGA.
The park board puts $ 1.3 million into the garden. The VBGA contributes $ 800,000. And the garden raises a further $ 1.8 million in revenues from admissions, rentals and events. This produces a total operating budget of $ 3.9 million.
However, a closer examination of the park board’s organizational chart reveals that the director of the garden is ranked no higher than the supervisor of a community recreation centre, such as the ones at Renfrew, Trout Lake and Killarney.
This has been a problem when trying to find a suitable candidate for garden director in the past, with the result that there has been a somewhat disruptive procession of appointments over the years. There have been five directors and at least three interim managers over the last 15 years.
To get his ideas heard, Harry Jongerden, the current director of the garden, has had to go through a hierarchy of managers to reach the ear of park board top boss, general manager Malcolm Bromley.
It was not always like this. Back when the garden opened, the first curator/ director Roy Forster reported directly to the general manager.
Being able to advocate effectively for the garden, which is one of the primary roles of a director, is quintessential for growth and development of the garden. It is also a guaranteed way to keep the focus of the garden on track and its essential educational mandate intact.
Patrick Lewis understood this the moment he took over as head of the University of B. C. Botanical Garden in 2009. One of his first acts was to get the attention of the executive committee at the university in order to make his case for the future of the garden more clearly.
This month, the park board is completely revising its organizational structure. It switched from a three- district “geographic model”, in which services and facilities are grouped according to location, to a more streamlined “functional model” in which all the key components are grouped according to their purpose and activity. How does this affect Vandusen? Well, it puts the garden under the operational umbrella of a newly appointed director of parks, Bill Harding, who comes from Toronto, where he was manager of parks and golf courses.
In one respect, this is good news for Vandusen because it means Jongerden no longer needs to compete with rec centre managers for attention; these supervisors have been moved into a new recreation department.
On the downside, the reorganization means Jongerden is still a low man on the totem pole with the tough job of convincing his new boss that the garden is not just a park or glorified golf course, but a unique, special institution, a jewel in the crown that needs to grow and be treated in a special and specific way to properly fulfil its mandate as a botanical garden.
He will also have to make his case that the full- time gardeners are specialists in their appointed areas, possessing expert botanical knowledge that the typical hedge- and- lawn clipping maintenance gardener does not have.
Unfortunately, the fact that VanDusen’s gardeners are still required to spend 10 weeks of every year putting up Christmas lights for the annual Festival of Lights does not contribute much to their reputation
As a botanical garden, Vandusen is a living museum that has a responsibility to preserve, protect, document and maintain collections of plants for the purpose of conservation, education, display and science.
as horticultural specialists, although it has to be conceded that putting up Christmas lights does require some botanical awareness not to trample precious specimens.
What Vandusen’s gardeners could be doing, of course, is the important work of curating and maintaining collections for conservation, education and research purposes.
“Their crucial function,” says Jongerden, “is to create and maintain collections that are not only pleasing to the eye, but serve an educational purpose.”
The gardeners should also be renovating collections, repairing infrastructure, and maintaining perennial and shrub borders. This is what gardeners at other top botanical institutions do.
What about the revenue generated by the popular lights show? Vandusen could easily make this money and more by simply raising its entrance fee by a measly $ 2. At the moment, admission is a bargain at $ 10.75.
By comparison, admission to the Vancouver Aquarium is $ 29, Museum of Vancouver is $ 12, Museum of Anthropology is $ 16.75, and Dr. Sun Yat Sen Classical Chinese Garden is $ 12.
Private events are another important source of income for the garden. This revenue stream is likely to increase as more groups use the garden’s facilities for weddings, bar mitzvahs, conferences and small concerts.
Jongerden is aware of the need to ensure these events don’t damage the garden or divert or supplant its mandate.
For instance, there was once a request to hold an Elton John rock concert for 15,000 in the garden. Jongerden quickly and sensibly rejected it as a “silly idea”.
But smaller, specialty concerts, attracting a few hundred people, have been held without causing damage or disruption.
The most crucial issue concerning the garden’s future is: Who should run it? The two- partner operating system has pretty much run out of steam. Both sides are struggling to see how to best make it work, but it could well be time to dissolve the partnership and move on to a more productive model.
This current dual- partnership might have served the garden reasonably well for the past 25 years, but it may not work for the next 25.
Some see the answer as single governance, with either the park board taking over the garden completely, running it properly as a worldclass botanical garden, or a new and improved VBGA board, one with better skills at fundraising, lobbying and governing, taking over and helping the garden to reach the next level.
The change also would include the running of the Bloedel Conservatory. This facility is in limbo as neither the park board nor the VBGA can decide how to proceed with a shared operating agreement. Many people think the conservatory is already being operated by Vandusen, but in fact it is still firmly in the hands of the park board. Bloedel’s future is not entirely protected, especially if an agreement over its long- term operation is not settled soon.
Many U. S. botanical gardens that have transitioned from dual governmental/ non- profit to non- profit governance include Norfolk, San Antonio, San Francisco ( Strybing), Denver, Descanso and Washington Park Arboretum. Numerous American zoos have also gone this route.
The city could do a lot worse than turn Vandusen over to professionals and assume a purely supportive role with an annual financial contribution. Meanwhile, Jongerden continues to work progressively to untangle problems that hold the garden back from achieving its full potential.