Gardens: an alternative feature of the Anthropocene

Yesterday afternoon, my whole concept of gardens changed. That was probably a weird sentence to read but once I explain, you shall hopefully understand…

I am currently taking a class called ‘The Anthropocene’; the main aim of the class is to evaluate the cumulative effects of humans on Earth in order for us to eventually individually conclude whether the Earth has indeed left the Holocene and entered a new geological epoch - the Anthropocene. The term Anthropocene was first proposed by Crutzen and Stoermer (2000), who argued that humans have displaced nature by becoming a dominant environmental force on Earth. It is easy to see how humans have dramatically altered the planet; we merely just have to look out the window to see for example how humans have altered land use through urbanisation. Consequently, there is an abundance of academic literature that has evidenced these human effects, through the extinction of megafauna (Barnosky et al., 2004) to the domestication of the world’s crops and livestock (Larson et al., 2014), mass deforestation, and the burning of fossil fuels (Kaplan et al., 2011).

Similarly, studies have looked at how human activities have modified Earth’s natural biome vegetation, consequently creating ‘anthromes’ (Ellis, 2011). I personally tended to think of these ‘anthromes’ as urban settlements, agricultural land, and disturbed forested and vegetated land. I would never place gardens within this subset. However, as my professor began to discuss how humans have developed gardens, disturbing the natural environment through deliberately modifying vegetation whilst simultaneously introducing non-native plant species, it suddenly dawned on me: gardens are another prime example of how humans have impacted the Earth. Even though gardens are associated with containing ‘nature’, they are very much unnatural. Gardens change the composition and configuration of the natural landscape through the introduction of non-native species and unnatural flower combination and patterns, the implementation of man-made borders, and the artificial upkeep of plants, such as neat hedgerows and flower beds.

Without this human alteration, the natural landscape of a garden would obviously be very different. This demonstrates how we have the ability to transform a natural environment. I think that a garden represents our unearthly power and dominance over nature.

This discussion made me think of my visit to Zilker Botanical Garden a few weeks ago. The Austin garden displays a range of native, non-native and exotic plants in which approximately 300,000 people visit annually (Zilker Botanical Garden, nd). I remember thinking that the garden was peaceful and natural – a nice escape from downtown Austin and the urban landscape that humans have very much created. However, on the other hand, I cannot help but think how the garden’s landscape is not natural and has also experienced a variety of human modifications: within the Japanese Garden, there are a number of Japanese maple trees in addition to unnatural, yet pleasant looking, rockery and flower installations. Without human intervention and consequent power and dominance over nature, this garden landscape would not exist.

The Japanese Garden in Zilker Botanical Garden

Within the garden, there are a number of personalised paving stones. One of which really caught my attention: it read ‘deep within each of us lies a garden’. At the time, I thought this meant there is a place within us that is harmonious; a gentle and serene characteristic present beneath our exterior. However, I now have a very different, and arguably much more negative, perception. I think that if a garden can fundamentally represent human power and dominance over nature, the claim that ‘deep within each of us lies a garden’ therefore means that we have within us the ability to transform nature – it is an innate trait within our species, which has the capability to transform the Earth as we formally begin to enter the Anthropocene.

This is arguably a very morbid way to view an innocent garden. I may now never be able to experience a garden the same way. I apologise if I have now done the same to you.

One of the personalised paving stones in the garden

References

Barnosky, P.L., R.S. Koch, R.S. Feranec, S.L. Wing and A.B. Shabel (2004) ‘Assessing the Causes of Late Pleistocene Extinctions on the Continents’, Science, Vol. 306, 70-75.

Crutzen, P.J. and E.F. Stoermer (2000) ‘The “Anthropocene”, Global Change’, IGBP Newsletter, Vol. 41 (12), 17-18.

Ellis, E.C. (2011) ‘Anthropogenic transformation of the terrestrial biosphere’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, Vol. 369, 1010-1035.

Kaplan, J.O. et al (2011) ‘Holocene carbon emissions as a result of anthropogenic land cover change’, Holocene, Vol. 21, 775-791.

Larson, G. et al (2014) ‘Current perspectives and the future of domestication studies’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 111, 6139-6146.

Zilker Botanical Garden (nd) The Gardens of ZBG [Online]. Austin: Zilker Botanical Gardens. Available at http://www.zilkergarden.org/gardens/gardens.html [Accessed: 19^th October 2016].