More visitors come to see, smell, and record flowers and trees

click for full-size view: panorama, early April 2019 expansion of botanical gardens

With months still to go before completion of the enlarged visitor center and programming areas the Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park continues to draw visitors from the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan and surroundings, as well as the wider state and Midwest region. Informational signage near the ticket counter tells of the current facilities' capacity being overrun, thus the need to accommodate the rising numbers at present and projecting into the future: more parking, more food and gift buying spaces, and toilets enough for everybody.

At a time when portable electronic devices tied into the Internet seem to distract and dissipate the focused activities of children through the elderly, it is heartening to see that some people make an effort to visit and admire the seasonal changes on display in the indoor and outdoor spaces around this piece of ground. There are signs of small increases in public attention and concern about human-caused loss of habitat, the rise in extreme weather events, and the responsibility borne be individuals and governing authorities. Both local and national authorities can curb or incentivize organizations and private companies to reduce the harm caused by their operating practices of sourcing, consuming, producing, distributing, and disposing of unused materials, heat, light, and waste.

The relationships that people develop and sustain with their physical environment and the spaces they inhabit in warm seasons and cold have changed over the generations and in direct consequence of available gear for dressing, getting around, and communicating over long distances. Each time people gain more control, power, and insulation from the physical facts of their surroundings, their own biological facts, and the habits of thinking that follow from the new normal, one consequence is less frequent and shallower connection to the natural world. Projecting this trend a few more decades into the future, it is possible to imagine more and more people who rarely get muddy shoes, are wet from rain, are chilled by falling temperatures, or who are bit by a mosquito or fly. What those future people know of non-human lives and cycles then comes not from direct experience, but is mediated by screens and on-demand reading, hearing, or viewing. Occasional black-outs, accidents, or deliberate expeditions "off the grid" will lead some people, sometimes to encounter places and events with relatively little human interference or administration.

The wide photo, above, stitched from two frames is a record of the new and expanded visitor entrance and related wider facilities to hold larger groups and bigger numbers of attendees. As work wraps up in the months ahead and traces of construction are tidied up, future visitors may come to believe the new, larger layout has always been at that scale. But returning to this photo is one way to remember the dynamic scale of human engagement with the many plants and animals inhabiting these grounds.