We share our mission to our guests through exhibits, discovery carts, tours, and programs. Both staff and volunteers interpret our mission to guests through these methods.

Studies show that only a small percentage of visitors who come to public gardens do so because of the specific plant collections. Most visitors come for educational programing, spiritual rejuvenation and quiet spaces, or even exercise.

Loaner programs including backpacks with naturalist equipment for children, GPS units for Geocaching, and iPods for Citizen Science, have become a popular and effective way for arboreta and botanical gardens to broaden the impact of their missions and i

Public gardens across America are responding to an influx of refugees/immigrants from many parts of the world with edible garden displays showcasing the increased diversity of our visitors.

The staff and visitors of many public gardens are less diverse than the communities they serve. Events, policies, and Carl Linnaeus’s categorization of humans have created long-standing barriers.

There is a soil-plant continuum—an ecological symbiosis—that is essential for the growth and sustainability of all vegetation.

International partnerships have existed since the first botanic garden was created, and they are essential for biodiversity preservation today.

The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society created a vegetable farm in the heart of Center City, Philadelphia. Visitors engaged with local experts in an exchange of knowledge about growing food and the impacts of community gardens.

Meaningful conversations leading to change happen in the gray areas of conversation. We must go beyond thinking in terms of black and white and speaking only with people who agree with us.

In August 2008, a dangerous pest, the nonnative, invasive Asian longhorned beetle, was discovered in Worcester County, Massachusetts.