Free Visit to Your Public Garden
Friday May 11 is National Public Gardens Day, sponsored by The American Public Gardens Association (APGA). In conjunction with Better Homes and Gardens and Rain Bird, visitors to local botanical gardens and arboretums can get free admission. Numerous gardens around the country are participating in the event and you can search for one close to you here. National Public Gardens Day was established by the APGA in 2009 to increase public awareness of the educational resources public gardens provide to local communities.
More Than Just Flowers and Trees
Public Gardens are often involved in research and offer programs in landscaping and other garden related activities. The gardens are wonderful places to take children, especially city kids suffering from nature deficit disorder, where they can learn about trees and flowers and get involved with nature. APGA has a website just for kids that has games, comics, coloring and learning activities for all ages.
Let’s Move! Museums and Gardens is a public gardens and museum initiative that supports First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! initiative which is dedicated to combating obesity and putting America’s children on the path to a healthy future. APGA has worked in partnership with the Association of Children’s Museums, the American Association of Museums, and the Institute for Museum and Library Services to develop Let’s Move! Museums & Gardens.
Currently, 495 museums and gardens are participating in the program.
In the summer of 2011, NOAA and APGA launched a broad agreement regarding climate change programming. The program links NOAA’s internationally recognized climate services and APGA’s public gardens, which receive more than seventy million visitors a year.
APGA works with various government and private organizations such as the North American Plant Collections Consortium (NAPCC) and the Sentinel Plant Network (SPN). SPN is a collaboration between the APGA and the National Plant Diagnostic Network(NPDN), whose mandate is to enhance agricultural security through protection of the health and productivity of plants in agricultural and natural ecosystems in the U.S. NAPCC “is a network of botanical gardens and arboreta working to coordinate a continent-wide approach to plant germplasm preservation, and to promote high standards of plant collections management.”
