(A quick note, we’re back from our time on the road, but we’ll keep publishing some reflections as we wrap up the semester) When our professors told us they were planning to take us to the Desert Botanical Gardens, I was less than thrilled. My deep-seated distaste for the Botanical Gardens is born out of loyalty to the battles my extended family has been fighting against the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens since 2016. This conflict arose when the Gardens proposed a $30 million expansion that abuts my cousins’ grandmother’s property. My family had issues with the proposal that included clearcutting forest that surrounded their property and paving over acres of delicate vernal pool habitat. There was also concern over potential runoff that would damage an already human-altered watershed. Now, years after the expansion’s completion, this once solitary property is illuminated by comically bright streetlamps and peppered with the echoes of slamming doors and car alarms. A $30 million dollar parking lot sits where my uncles and cousins used to roam the woods. Heavy machinery crouches behind chain-link fences atop the old sledding hill. On the property line between them and the Botanical Gardens, my relatives erected a sign that reads “Ahead lies desolation by hubris and greed.” Having witnessed this utter destruction and with these words in mind, I had no desire to walk around the Desert Gardens and pretend to have a good time. In fact, I was determined to have a bad time. I succeeded.
The Designation of Places
The Designation of Places
The Designation of Places
(A quick note, we’re back from our time on the road, but we’ll keep publishing some reflections as we wrap up the semester) When our professors told us they were planning to take us to the Desert Botanical Gardens, I was less than thrilled. My deep-seated distaste for the Botanical Gardens is born out of loyalty to the battles my extended family has been fighting against the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens since 2016. This conflict arose when the Gardens proposed a $30 million expansion that abuts my cousins’ grandmother’s property. My family had issues with the proposal that included clearcutting forest that surrounded their property and paving over acres of delicate vernal pool habitat. There was also concern over potential runoff that would damage an already human-altered watershed. Now, years after the expansion’s completion, this once solitary property is illuminated by comically bright streetlamps and peppered with the echoes of slamming doors and car alarms. A $30 million dollar parking lot sits where my uncles and cousins used to roam the woods. Heavy machinery crouches behind chain-link fences atop the old sledding hill. On the property line between them and the Botanical Gardens, my relatives erected a sign that reads “Ahead lies desolation by hubris and greed.” Having witnessed this utter destruction and with these words in mind, I had no desire to walk around the Desert Gardens and pretend to have a good time. In fact, I was determined to have a bad time. I succeeded.