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Ariana Twomey
November 27, 2011
Encounters With Nature
From Europe to Massachusetts: The Global Influence of Gardens
The Botanic Gardens of Smith College, both indoors and outdoors, utilize scientific
techniques to manipulate the environments and allow the growth and survival of plant species
found around the world. Although botanists have used similar techniques to sustain plant life in
the greenhouses as well as exterior, the gardens of Smith College have been created to reflect
two vastly different European styles with distinctly different layouts. The well kept and
organized exterior rock gardens and additional systematics gardens reflect traditional French
gardening, although when visitors to Smith travel into the conservatory rooms such as the Palm
House they become subject to an example of a more naturalistic English botanical garden as well
as a new way to view nature.
The Palace of Versailles is known for its great architectural detailing as well as the
arguably pompous ruler, King Louis XIV, who lived in the grand chateaux, although there are
identifiable elements such as the number of beautiful gardens surrounding the palace walls which
attract millions of tourists to Versailles every year. These gardens define what “French Gardens”
have come to be. European kings were believed to have divine connections to God and people
believed that it was God’s will to have the essence of nature be geometrical, as a result French
Gardens are often in rows and systematically organized.1 The rock garden and systematics
gardens are similar to French gardens due to their use of small plants, organization and
geometry. There are thousands of species of plants in the rock garden alone and each one is
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Nicola Courtright, FYSE 114 English Garden Lecture, Amherst College, Nov. 3, 2011.
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clearly marked and separated from one another. Systematics Gardens are organized as well, as a
result of the system of classification that gardens used to arrange the species in beds.
The King was assumed to have a cosmic power and as a result, flowers were always in
bloom, workers were constantly replanting even throughout the night2. This human interference
in nature and constant maintenance of the gardens also gave Versailles a magical element. Like
Versailles the rock garden which is home to species that would be found in harsh habitats on the
summit of a mountain or in a tundra which without human control and maintenance would not be
able to survive in our climate. Although through human control the plant life is sustained by the
mix of sand leaf mold, gravel and loam that they are planted in3.
In almost direct opposition to the gardens at Versailles, a style identified as English was
pioneered by landscape architect William Kent who believed that the art of gardening was all
about making artificiality appear real. The transition from French to English gardens as well as
the many defining characteristics that are notably visible in each style are also apparent as one
would travel from the systematic gardens of Smith College to the Palm House inside the
conservatory. Other than the human controlled variables, high humidity and frequent watering,
which are necessary to the existence of lowland tropical forest plants found in the Jungle Room,
such as cacao, banana, mahogany and cinnamon, there is a great sense of discontinuity between
the outside and inside. The Jungle Room like many of William Kent’s garden designs have clear
winding paths that guide visitors around the space. Past English gardens also used maps to
distinguish certain points on the paths where visitors should pause to look, similarly, the Jungle
Room has a few benches where visitors can sit and further study their surroundings4. The English
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Nicola Courtright, FYSE 114 English Garden Lecture, Amherst College, Nov. 3, 2011.
"Botanic Garden at Smith College, Gardens - Rock Garden." Smith College.
http://www.smith.edu/garden/Gardens/rockgarden.html (accessed November 27, 2011).
4 Nicola Courtright, FYSE 114 English Garden Lecture, Amherst College, Nov. 3, 2011.
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style of botanical gardens turns viewers into active participants. Also, opposed to signs that
specify what each plant species is in the rock garden, the Jungle Room instead scatters a number
of little yellow signs about the room which mark points where visitors could listen to a
corresponding audio tape if they wished.
In Picturing Tropical Nature author Nancy Stepan argues that there is a nature that exists
beyond visual representation which often influence society’s understanding of our surroundings.
Through the experience that is provided by the Jungle Room this alleged other side of nature can
begin to be experienced and understood. “Even within European representations, tropical nature
stood for many different values -for heat and warmth but also for a dangerous and diseased
environment; for superabundant fertility.”5 Upon entering the room the warmth is felt
immediately and thickness of the air is felt immediately. The daylight which penetrates through
the glass ceiling and walls only travels so far to be blocked out by the broad palm branches and
thick leaves. It is an intimidating room to enter and the danger of a real tropical forest is captured
because of the dark and ominous interior of the room. English gardens are about ones experience
in nature, they a supposed to make visitors feel like they are apart of their surroundings. The
Palm House’s nickname, the Jungle Room, holds true. It is hard to be in the space, walking under
the canopy of palms, experiencing the hot heavy air and not feel as though you are deep within
the tropical jungle.
The Rock Garden and Palm House, are two very different types of gardens, the rock
garden as a collective whole was not created to appear naturalistic, while it can be assumed that
artificial reality was one of the main focuses in the Palm House as well as a number of the other
conservatory rooms. Despite their obtrusive differences the interior and exterior complement
Nancy Leys Stepan. Introduction, and “Going to the Tropics ." In Picturing Tropical Nature, 11-56,
240-245. New York: Cornell University Press, 2001, 21.
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each other. They provide visitors to the college with two distinct examples of European styles of
gardening. Both styles are centered around education yet when comparing both, the evolution of
the construction of gardens as well as the evolution of the ways in which we view nature become
apparent. When discussing Kent in his “The History of the Modern Taste in Gardening,” author
Horace Walpole states “He leaped the fence and saw that all nature was a garden.”6 Due to
Kent’s influential work, people went from viewing gardens such as the systematics of Smith with
a scientific approach to viewing with more of an aesthetic and naturalistic perspective like the
Jungle Room, in attempt to mimic the impulsiveness of nature
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"The History of the Modern Taste in Gardening." In The Genius of the Place, edited by John Dixon
Hunt and Peter Willis, 313-316. New York: Harper & Row, publishers, 1975, 313.